Child marriage

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Child marriage or child marriage is the marriage of at least one person before reaching the legally permissible age for marriage or before reaching the marriageable age . On the one hand, there are marriages between an adult, mostly male spouse and a girl in childhood. In addition, marriage among non-adults is also referred to as child marriage . Around 765 million people worldwide were affected by child marriages in June 2019, including around 650 million girls and young women.

There is no uniform international and therefore binding definition of child marriage or child marriage . The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child , which is widely recognized in Germany and other European countries, describes child marriage as a term that should apply to such marriages “in which at least one of the married couples has not yet reached the age of 18. [...] ". This corresponds to the definition of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe . In addition, the term child marriage includes marriages in the consensus of those involved, as well as with the participation of the legal guardians or an official / judicial dispute .

Most states have a minimum age for marriage. However, legal regulations are often not complied with due to traditional religious, cultural or social reasons. Marriage in childhood, i.e. before reaching official marriage and in extreme cases even before puberty , is more common among girls than boys. Reasons for a child marriage can be that parents want to marry their daughter as a virgin , or that the family wants to save the daughter's cost of living as early as possible by transferring it to the husband. In addition to a strongly patriarchal society - especially in large family groups - poverty is one of the most important driving factors for child marriages.

A distinction must be made between the child engagement , with which parents “arrange” marriages for their children , which are then concluded when the official minimum age is reached or later, sometimes against the will of one or both of the married couples ( forced marriage ).

Poster campaign against child marriage (refugee camp in the Kurdish part of Iraq 2016)

ethnology

For ethnology ( ethnology ) the age of marriage , which traditionally legitimizes sexual relations and procreation , represents a main function in all ethnic groups in the world. In resource and capital-oriented societies, after sexual maturity, it takes time for individuals to possess the resources and skills to be able to live one to set up a competitive household. In contrast, in labor-dependent societies, the labor productivity of women and children is decisive for early marriages due to the dependence on life and reproductive opportunities. In particular, the valuation of virginity in patrilineal societies - in addition to the degree of polygyny ( polygyny ) and dowry competition - lead to a culture-specific lowering of the age of marriage up to and including child marriage.

Child marriage inhibits girls' educational and health opportunities. Today, pregnancy and childbirth complications are considered the second leading cause of death in young women between the ages of 15 and 19 worldwide. Girls marry early, especially in poor rural areas, often with inadequate care during pregnancy and childbirth. In poor strata of society occurs disproportionately to complications, including the fistula formation during birth, resulting in a urinary or fecal incontinence , if untreated leads to permanent physical and social degradation of women.

Dissemination and legal regulations

According to UNICEF , which campaigns against child marriage, 720 million women living today and 156 million men married before their 18th birthday, around 250 million women even before their 15th birthday. There are particularly high rates in South Asia and Africa.

Religions

The legal and Islamic scholar Mathias Rohe currently sees child marriages particularly widespread in certain Muslim milieus or among the Yazidis in Iraq, but also among the (predominantly Christian) Roma in the Balkans and in India, which is influenced by Hinduism . This would show that the primary cause is not religion, but cultural patriarchal influences in connection with the corresponding living conditions and lack of education. However, legitimacy would take place on the part of the religions and their representatives.

The Codex Iuris Canonici of the Catholic Church stipulates a minimum age of 14 years for girls and 16 years for boys (Canon 1083, § 1), but recommends the regionally usual minimum age in Canon 1072 (“The pastors have taken care of this be that young people are prevented from entering into marriage as long as they have not reached the age at which marriage is customary according to national custom. ”) and in Canon 1083, § 2, allows the bishops' conferences to“ determine a higher age ”.

Marriage to minors is prohibited by law in most Islamic states , and the minimum marriage age for girls is 16 to 18 years and for boys 18 years. According to the regulations of orthodox Islamic law schools , girls are allowed to marry from the age of nine. These schools of law are based on the marriage of the Prophet Muhammad with his third wife Aisha , who, according to Islamic tradition ( Hadith ), was six years old at the time of the marriage contract and nine years old at the wedding. In Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj , it says as a statement of Aisha: “The Messenger of God, blessings and salvation be upon him, married me (tazawwaawanī) when I was six (years). He took me to his house (banā bī) when I was a girl of nine years. ”It is believed that the marriage was consummated when I was nine years old. Marriage with young girls occurs particularly in rural, traditional areas, where traditionalists regard it as a Sunnah (based on the prophetic model). Reasons for getting married early could be economic hardship or concerns about maintaining the family's good reputation.

Europe

Child marriages were common in Europe for a long time, with girls in particular getting married early. Sex with children was largely tolerated by the state and the church until the Middle Ages. This also legitimized child marriage through sexual execution . The future King of Hungary and national saint, Stephan I, married Gisela of Bavaria, who was only ten years old, in 995 . It was not until the 16th century that sexual intercourse with girls under the age of 10 was legally punished as rape. Until then, marriages could also be carried out with small children through canon law .

Today, the legal provisions differ from country to country, but a minimum age of at least 16 years is now common.

Germany

In Germany, in accordance with Section 1303 of the German Civil Code (BGB), a marriage may not be entered into before the age of majority . A marriage cannot be effectively entered into before the age of 16. A marriage with a minor who had reached the age of 16 at the time of the marriage can be annulled ( § 1314 Paragraph 1 No. 1 BGB).

With the influx of over a million refugees in 2015 and 2016 , the number of married minors has increased significantly. On July 31, 2016, 361 foreign children under 14 years of age and a total of 1461 minors under 18 years of age were recorded as "married" in the Central Aliens Register. Almost half of these married minors come from Syria, around 80 percent are female. The federal government announced in November 2016 that it was planning a ban on child marriage. Federal Minister of Justice Heiko Maas (SPD) set up a federal-state working group to work out solutions by the end of 2016. Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) said: “We are increasingly dealing with the phenomenon of marriages with minors, with young girls. We believe that the Justice Minister must act quickly here. "The SPD parliamentary group leader Thomas Oppermann summarized the coalition plans as follows:" We do not want child marriages. Two adult partners are part of the marriage. I find it unbearable that 14-year-olds are forced into marriages. "

At the beginning of June 2017, the Bundestag passed changes that came into force on July 22, 2017: marriages concluded by persons under the age of 16 will be void in the future . In principle , marriages should be annulled if a spouse was between 16 and 18 years old at the time of the marriage. This can only be dispensed with if the annulment would represent particular hardship or if the spouse who has meanwhile reached legal age confirms the marriage. These regulations also apply to marriages concluded abroad. In future, an absolute minimum age of 18 years will apply to weddings in Germany; the earlier possible family court exemption for marriages from the age of 16 is no longer applicable. There are transitional provisions for old cases. Various expert associations consider the new law to be unconstitutional. The strict nullity solution without weighing up the individual case violates the Basic Law. The Federal Court of Justice shares these concerns and therefore submitted the law to the Federal Constitutional Court.

Greece

In 2005, in the Greek region of Thrace , Muslim girls were allowed to be married at the age of ten; this guaranteed a special right based on the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Western Thrace was who dictated come to Greece by the victorious powers of World War I the 1920s. Greece secured in the Treaty of Sèvres (Greece - Protection of Minorities) - not to be confused with the Treaty of Sèvres (Ottoman Empire) - regulation of the affairs of Muslim citizens with regard to personal status and family law in accordance with Muslim customs and protection of mosques, Muslim cemeteries, waqfs and other Muslim institutions and the right of all minorities to independently found and manage their own charitable, social and religious institutions and to regulate minority schools. The treaty was ratified by a revised additional protocol on July 24, 1923, parallel to the negotiations on the Treaty of Lausanne.

Romania

In Romania there are also exemptions for child marriages among the Roma. Nicolae Stefanescu-Draganesti, President of the Romanian Human Rights League, criticized the current legal practice in 2003. The EU envoy for Romania, Baroness Emma Nicholson , called on the authorities to separate the couple in one case: "It is necessary to respect human rights in every situation."

Africa

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In Africa, many girls are married well before the age of 18. According to Nena Thundu, coordinator of the campaign against child marriage of the African Union , in 30 of the 55 African countries at least three quarters of all girls are married before they reach the age of majority, especially in Central Africa .

In 2015, the children's charity Unicef ​​warned that the number of child marriages in Africa was increasing and that this continent could overtake South Asia.

Nigeria

In Nigeria , according to a report by the human rights organization Save the Children, 40% of poor girls are married by the age of 15, compared with 3% of the richest girls.

Asia

Afghanistan

The 2007 “ UNICEF Photo of the Year” drew attention to conditions in Afghanistan . It showed a 40-year-old Afghan next to his 11-year-old bride. The documentary by Nima Sarvestani, I Was 50 Sheep, denounced the trafficking of girls and their forced marriage in Afghanistan in 2010 based on several individual fates. In Pashtunwali , the legal and ethical code of the Pashtuns (the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan) is, according to the evangelical Institute of Islamic Studies allows child marriage.

Georgia

In Georgia, girls in rural areas are no longer allowed to go to school when they are 12, are married by their parents and are not allowed to leave the house. According to a 2010 survey by the Georgian Health Authority, only three percent of women between the ages of 15 and 24 were informed before they came of age.

India

In South Asia , child marriage is still widespread, especially in rural areas, although it is prohibited by law. A legal ban on child marriage has been a concern of many Indian social reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy , Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Mahatma Gandhi . As early as 1929, the Child Marriage Restraint Act passed a law that required a marriage age of at least 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys. According to the Rapid Household Survey , which is carried out across India, 58.9% of women in Bihar state were married before the age of 18, in Rajasthan 55.5%, in West Bengal 54.9%. The lowest rates are found in Jammu and Kashmir (high proportion of Muslim population) with 3.4%, Himachal Pradesh with 3.5% and Goa with 4.1%. In Kerala this applies to 10%. The economically underdeveloped states in northern India therefore have significantly higher rates.

Nepal

Child marriage has been banned in Nepal since 1963, but ten percent of all girls are considered married before the age of 15 and 37 percent before the age of 18. According to a study by Human Rights Watch , the numbers are only higher in India and Bangladesh .

Yemen

In 1999, the age of consent in Yemen , which defines the ability to consent to sexual acts, was lowered from 15 years to the onset of puberty ; as a rule, this means an age of nine years. But there are also marriages with even younger girls that are also carried out. Caused a stir in April 2008, the fall of the then eight-year-old Yemeni Nujood Ali who prevailed divorce from her 22 years older man in court, with whom she forced to marry had been. However, she had to pay her ex-husband the equivalent of $ 500 in compensation.

Saudi Arabia

In August 2008, the case of a forced marriage between a minor girl and a 75-year-old sheikh became known in Saudi Arabia . An advisor to the Ministry of Justice in Saudi Arabia called for the child's father to be brought to justice.

Turkey

With regard to Turkey, the UNDP study “Human Development Report - Youth in Turkey” found in 2008 that, especially in rural areas, the fear of damaging a girl's honor is often the basis for child marriages and even honor killings .

United States

In the United States, the minimum age for marriage varies by state. The minimum age is 12 in Massachusetts and Kansas, 13 in New Hampshire, and 14 in some other states.

Between 2000 and 2010 alone, there were more than 167,000 child marriages in the 38 states that provided data.

See also

literature

  • Jennifer Antomo: Child marriage, public policy and legal reform , NJW 2016, 3558
  • Susanne Krieg: Child brides: “Serve and obey!” In: GEO magazine . No. 2, Hamburg January 2008, online ( Memento from January 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
  • Vanessa Vu : Child Marriage: Phantom Child Bride . In: The time . August 18, 2016, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed August 25, 2016]).

Web links

Wiktionary: Child marriage  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Duden-Online : Child marriage. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
  2. ↑ Message: Unicef ​​analysis: More than 700 million children were married as minors. In: Spiegel Online. June 7, 2019, accessed July 7, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Alexandra Maschwitz: The form of marriage: marriage in the center of the interests of state and religion - a comparative legal study of mandatory and optional civil marriage using the example of Germany and Sweden , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2013, p. 109; online in google books
  4. ↑ a b UNICEF report: Ending Child Marriage - Progress and prospects. , 2014, accessed July 21, 2015.
  5. ↑ a b Expert: Child marriages mostly in patriarchal cultures . Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 9, 2016, accessed on August 26, 2020 . , Interview with Mathias Rohe
  6. ↑ Ute Stallmeister: Child marriage - five questions - five answers. In: DSW.de. German Foundation for World Population , March 28, 2018, accessed on July 7, 2019.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Mueller , Bernhard Nauck , Andreas Diekmann (eds.): Handbook of Demography 1: Models and Methods. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 978-3-642-63021-7 , p. 401 ( side view in the Google book search).
  8. ↑ Sabine Menkens: UN conjure up the demographic dividend. In: The world. November 18, 2014, accessed January 25, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Kate Grant: Why do a million women still suffer the treatable condition of fistula? In: The Guardian . May 23, 2016, accessed January 25, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Nyasha Chingono: 'My dreams were destroyed': poverty costs child brides dear in Zimbabwe. In: The Guardian. January 4, 2019, accessed January 25, 2019 .
  11. ^ St. John Chrysostom, Philip Schaff (ed.): Homily XVI: Rm IX. 1. - “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not” . In: Homilies On The Epistle To The Romans. 1889 (English; online at clerus.org).
  12. ^ Institute for Islamic Issues : Press release on age at marriage and forced marriage in Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia: 60-year-old wants to marry 10-year-old girl. ( Memento from October 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Evangelical Alliances in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bonn July 24, 2008, accessed on October 7, 2014.
  13. ↑ Muslim : Ṣaḥīḥ . Volume 2, Edition Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Cairo 1955, p. 1038: No. 1422 (69); see there also p. 1039: nos. 70–73.
  14. ^ Institute for Islamic Issues: Marriage Age. ( Memento of March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Evangelical Alliances in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bonn 2013, accessed on September 13, 2013.
  15. ↑ Erwin J. Haeberle : The sexuality of man. Manual and atlas. 2nd, expanded edition. Gruyter, Berlin, 1985, Chapter 11.1.1: The history of marriage in the Occident ( online at hu-berlin.de; original 1978: The Sex Atlas ).
  16. ^ Waltraud Falardeau: Contexts and backgrounds of sexual violence against children. A contribution to the analysis of an individual and societal problem Tectum Verlag 2001, p. 38; online in Google Books
  17. ^ Reply of the Federal Government (September 2016) to a request from the Green parliamentary group
  18. ↑ 1475 minors in Germany are married , September 9, 2016, spiegel.de , accessed on September 16, 2016
  19. ↑ German Federal: printed matter 18/9595 , p.20 f.
  20. ↑ zeit.de November 8, 2016: Coalition wants to ban child marriages without exception
  21. ^ Daniel Bauer: Child marriages soon forbidden in Germany . Tagesschau.de, October 12, 2016.
  22. ↑ sueddeutsche.de June 2, 2017: Bundestag decides to end child marriages (237th session of the Bundestag)
  23. ↑ Draft law of the federal government of May 17, 2017, printed matter 18/12377 (pdf)
  24. ^ Law against child marriage: Married from 18 years. Federal Government, July 22, 2017, accessed on September 2, 2017 .
  25. ^ Website of the BMJV: Various statements from associations. BMJV, January 22, 2020, accessed on January 22, 2020 .
  26. ^ Resolution of the XII. Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice of November 14, 2018 (Az. XII ZB 292/16). Federal Government, November 14, 2018, accessed on January 22, 2020 .
  27. ↑ Uta Keseling: The married child. February 25, 2005, accessed October 6, 2014 .
  28. ↑ Protocol relating to the Treaty concerning the Protection of Minorities in Greece of 10 August 1920 and the Treaty relating to Thrace of 10 August 1920 ( English )
  29. ↑ Bucharest (RPO). The bride was twelve, her husband 15: A forced child wedding caused outrage and incomprehension in Romania. , RP online from September 30, 2003
  30. ↑ Child marriages in Africa: "I've never met a happy child bride". Interview by Heike Klovert with Nena Thundu. In: Spiegel online. July 23, 2019, accessed July 25, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Unicef ​​warns of a massive increase in child marriage. In: Deutschlandfunk. November 27, 2015, accessed July 7, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Save the Children: Minors, female, forced marriages. In: time online. October 11, 2016, accessed July 7, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Winner: UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 - 1st Prize for Stephanie Sinclair “Child Brides”. In: unicef ​​- Photo of the Year - international Award. United Nations Children's Fund, December 17, 2007, accessed September 13, 2013.
  34. ↑ Nima Sarvestani: I was worth 50 sheep - trafficking in girls in Afghanistan. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen , Schweiz 2010 (53 min .; documentary about trafficking in girls and forced marriage based on individual fates; video on YouTube ).
  35. ^ Institute for Islamic Issues : Press release on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan - Human rights in the Hindu Kush: Afghan women are "secondary". ( Memento from September 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Evangelical Alliances in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bonn April 11, 2012, accessed on September 13, 2013.
  36. ^ National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), Georgia: Reproductive Health Survey Georgia 2010 Final Report. ( Memento of March 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) PDF, 6.26 MB.
  37. ^ Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 ( Memento of March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ↑ Indiatimes: Compulsory Registration of Marriages
  39. ↑ Child marriage in Nepal: Married at eleven, mother at twelve , derstandard.at from September 16, 2016
  40. ^ Human Rights Watch : Yemen: Human Rights Developments. In: World Report 2001 , accessed September 13, 2013.
  41. ↑ Frederik Obermaier: Forced marriage in Yemen: Eight years old and divorced. In: Süddeutsche.de . April 16, 2008, accessed September 13, 2013.
  42. ↑ Article: Bride in Saudi Arabia: Resistance to Child Marriage. ( Memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: n-tv .de. August 25, 2008, accessed September 13, 2013.
  43. ↑ United Nations Development Program : Turkey 2008 - Human Development Report - Youth in Turkey. Human Development Report (HDR), 2008, p. 45 ( PDF file; 1.7 MB, 148 pages ).
  44. ^ Paul Salopek : Early Marriage Survives in the US In: Chicago Tribune . December 12, 2004, accessed October 7, 2014.
  45. ↑ See State-by-State Marriage "Age of Consent" Laws , accessed December 6, 2015.
  46. ↑ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/sunday/it-was-forced-on-me-child-marriage-in-the-us.html