HOW CAN LAWS HELP END CHILD MARRIAGE?
UNDERSTANDING LAWS AND RIGHTS
Laws are rules, usually created by governments, which work together to ensure a peaceful society. They are enforced by government mechanisms - such as the police - and if they are broken, there are usually penalties, such as fines or going to prison. Laws are different depending on which country you live in, and sometimes depending on where in a country you live.
Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death, and regardless of your gender, nationality, language, race, ethnicity, religion, or any other status.
Laws have existed for centuries, and they change and grow as our societies develop. The concept of rights has also existed in some way for centuries, but the human rights we use today - the rights which apply to everyone in the world - are much newer principles. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established by the United Nations in 1948 to serve as a foundation for peace, justice, and freedom across the world. The rights contained within the declaration are intended to be the standard achievements for all countries and their people.
Every country which is a member of the United Nations has agreed to the declaration, but the declaration itself is ‘non-binding’ - this means that it is not compulsory for governments to apply the rights in the declaration in their own countries. Governments decide for themselves if they will ensure their citizens can access these rights, and they can do this by establishing laws and policies.
Some governments have created laws to ensure most or all of the rights in the declaration are available to their citizens, but many others have not.
LAWS AND RIGHTS FOR CHILDREN
Children have all of the same rights as adults, but they also have additional rights which are defined in child-focused international conventions.
The main international convention which defines these rights is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and it includes things like the right to play and the right for children to understand their rights. It also provides more detail about the right to education, which is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Importantly, the UNCRC has a heavy focus on ensuring children are able to grow up safely.
The UNCRC also has four ‘general principles’:
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non-discrimination
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best interest of the child
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right to life survival and development
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right to be heard.
Child marriage violates all of these principles.
Every country which is a member of the United Nations has agreed to implement the UNCRC (except the United States), through a process called ‘ratification’. Ratification is when a government takes a formal decision that it will apply the principles contained in an international convention in their own country. This means that countries should have laws and policies which deliver their rights as they are defined in the UNCRC.
It’s important to understand this, because it means that children in almost every country in the world have a guarantee that they can access their rights.
Girls and women have additional protections in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This includes the minimum legal age of marriage being set at 18, the right to decide when and how many children to have, and equal rights with men in marriage, divorce, property ownership, and child custody. Only four countries have not ratified CEDAW: Iran, Somalia, and Sudan have not signed the convention, and the United States has not ratified it.
HOW CAN LAWS END CHILD MARRIAGE?
When laws are in place which protect children and support their development throughout childhood, they can have an enormous impact on preventing child marriage, especially if they target the root causes of child marriage.
Having a law which bans all forms of child marriage is the starting point, but there are many other laws which should be implemented to protect every child. These broader laws protecting children do not have to be specific to child marriage. For example, a law which makes sure the birth of a child is registered means that a child’s age is known for certain, and a law which ensures children complete their education can prevent girls being taken out of school early to be married.
No single law alone will end child marriage. Even when there are different laws which aim to end child marriage, they must work together to ensure there are no gaps, or ‘loopholes’, through which children can fall.
If a country creates several laws which work together to protect children, the government must also ensure that the laws are implemented. This means having enough government staff - such as police and local officials - to ensure the laws are not broken, enough legal staff to ensure criminal cases go to court, and enough public sector staff to provide services like education and child protection to ensure children are safe and in school.
At the same time, many laws cannot work if there is no support for communities to follow the law. For example, if the government creates a law which says children must complete their education, families need to be able to afford to send their children to school. For the poorest families, this will require some form of financial support from the government.
The countries which have rapidly reduced child marriage, or where child marriage is rare, have established many different laws to create a broader legal framework which protects children, and the government ensures laws are implemented. Usually, they also provide assistance to help families survive, such as free school meals or financial support to keep children in school.
