- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
In a new estimates release that would raise concern, UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) has said that South Asia is home to the most number of child brides globally as growing financial pressure and closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic have forced families to marry off their young daughters.
UNICEF is responsible for giving humanitarian and developmental aid to children around the world.
The agency said that there are 290 million child brides in the region, accounting for nearly half of the global total, seeking more efforts to bring an end to the practice.
“The fact that South Asia has the highest child marriage burden in the world is nothing short of tragic,” said Noala Skinner, UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia, said in a statement, Reuters reported
“Child marriage locks girls out of learning, puts their health and wellbeing at risk and compromises their future. Every girl who gets married as a child is one girl too many.”
A new study conducted by UNICEF, which also included interviews and talks across 16 locations in South Asian nations such as India, Bangladesh and Nepal found that many parents considered marriage as the best option for their daughters who had limited options to receive education during the Covid-19 lockdown.
In India, the legal age of marriage for girls is 18, along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In Nepal, it is 20 while in Afghanistan, it is 16. It is also 16 in Pakistan except for its Sindh province where the minimum age is 18.
Families were pushed by financial hardships during the pandemic to get their daughters married early in order to reduce domestic expenses, the UN study also found.
According to UNICEF, potential solutions that were identified in discussions include bringing social protection measures to counter poverty, protecting every child’s right to get educated, ensuring an adequate framework to enforce law and making efforts to address social norms, the Reuters report added.
“We must do more and strengthen partnerships to empower girls through education, including comprehensive sexuality education, and equipping them with skills, while supporting communities to come together to end this deeply rooted practice,” Björn Andersson, Asia-Pacific regional director of the United Nations Population Fund, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
