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Child Marriage FAQ
It can be hard to imagine why someone would choose to marry off a child. But for millions of people around the world, child marriage can seem like the best and sometimes the only option. To better understand why, here are answers to some of our most common questions:
1. What is child marriage?
Child marriage refers to any marriage or union in which one or both parties are minors under the age of 18. Around the world, child marriage most often involves girls being married to older men.
2. How common is child marriage?
Globally, about 1 in 5 women and girls alive today (about 650 million in total) were married before their 18th birthday. Every year, an additional 12 million girls are married as children — that’s 22 girls every minute, or about 1 every 3 seconds.
In Kenya’s remote Narok County, where our programs primarily operate, 1 in 2 girls are married before the age of 19 — more than twice the national rate.
3. Is child marriage legal in Kenya?
No. Under the Marriage Act of 2014, the minimum legal age of marriage in Kenya is 18. This law, in part, led to a 10% drop in the national rate of child marriage between 2014 and 2022. But the practice persists informally, especially in rural communities with weaker legal safeguards and law enforcement. In the communities we serve, 50% of girls are still married before the age of 19.
4. Why does child marriage happen?
Child marriage is a complex practice rooted in gender inequality and sustained by a combination of social, economic, and structural factors.
- Gender inequality and social norms: Child marriage is rooted in norms that value girls less than boys and limit girls’ and women’s roles to marriage and motherhood. In many communities, controlling girls’ sexuality and preserving family honor are prioritized, and marriage is seen as the socially acceptable way to do this. Parents may believe that marrying a daughter early protects her from sexual violence, social stigma related to unwed pregnancy, or dishonor, even though these beliefs are tied to unequal gender norms rather than girls’ rights or well-being.
- Economic pressures and poverty: Poverty is one of the strongest drivers of child marriage worldwide. In contexts where families struggle to meet basic needs, some parents view marriage as a way to reduce economic burden or secure financial support. In cultures with bride price (a payment from the groom’s family to the bride’s family), parents under financial stress may feel pressure to marry off daughters early as a short-term income strategy.
- Perceived security and future prospects: Some families believe that marriage will offer their daughters a safer or more stable life than remaining in their natal household, especially in settings with weak safety nets, high rates of violence, or limited access to education and employment. These perceptions can be especially strong during times of crisis, such as conflict, displacement, or economic shock, when schooling and protective services break down.
- Education and limited opportunities: Girls with little or no access to education are at much higher risk of early marriage. When schooling options are limited or unsafe, and opportunities for meaningful work are scarce, marriage may appear to be a more viable pathway for girls, even though it often curtails their future opportunities.
- Cultural expectations and stigma: Harmful traditional practices and social stigma further reinforce early marriage. In many places, there remains strong social pressure for girls to marry early. This can be tied to beliefs about virginity, family honor, or traditional rites of passage. Even where laws set a minimum age for marriage, these norms may persist informally and continue to influence decisions. In some communities, practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) are viewed as prerequisites for marriage, while taboos surrounding unwed pregnancy can pressure families to marry girls quickly to avoid shame.
Weak enforcement of laws, limited access to child protection services, and lack of economic opportunities for women and girls allow these factors to persist. Addressing child marriage therefore requires comprehensive, community-led approaches that expand girls’ access to education and health care, strengthen economic security, challenge harmful gender norms, and uphold girls’ rights.
5. Where does child marriage happen?
The global burden of child marriage has historically been centered in South Asia, but is now shifting to sub-Saharan Africa, where progress to end the practice is slower and population growth is higher. Close to 1 in 3 of the world’s newly married child brides now live in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 1 in 7 just 25 years ago.
Child marriage is not unique to developing countries however. A recent study by Unchained at Last found that between 2000 and 2018, nearly 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The majority of these marriages were between adolescent girls and adult men.
6. What are consequences of child marriage?
Child marriage robs girls of their autonomy, which has the following long-term consequences:
- Gender-based violence: Girls married before the age of 15 are 50% more likely to experience physical and/or sexual violence than those married after 18.
- Adolescent pregnancy: In many developing countries, marriage is tied to child rearing. Child brides are more likely to become pregnant before reaching physical maturity, which increases the risk of complications during childbirth — the leading cause of death among adolescent girls globally.
- HIV: Child brides are exposed to frequent sexual activity and have limited power to negotiate safe sex, which increases their risk of HIV infection. For every 3 new HIV infections among men and boys aged 15-24, there are 7 among girls and women of the same age.
- School dropout: Once girls get married, they are often expected to drop out of school and focus on domestic responsibilities. But the link between child marriage and education goes both ways: keeping girls in school is one of the most powerful ways to delay marriage (see below)
7. What does education have to do with child marriage?
When girls stay in school, they are: empowered to make decisions for themselves, better informed about their health and rights, and better equipped with the skills to pursue dreams and careers outside of marriage. They also greatly expand their future earning potential, which can have a ripple effect, as this creates more prosperous families and relieves poverty, a primary driver of child marriage. For these reasons, the likelihood of a girl marrying as a child drops by 6% for every additional additional year she stays in secondary school.
8. How does climate change impact child marriage?
Climate change exacerbates the material drivers of child marriage, such as poverty and displacement. Take Kenya’s recent drought, for example, which was a direct result of climate change. Three years of poor rainfall disrupted the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists across the country, while simultaneously slashing food production. The resulting food insecurity, mass displacement, and economic hardship pushed many families to consider child marriage for their daughters for the economic incentive (receiving a bride price), causing child marriages to double throughout the affected region.
9. What is the difference between child, early, and forced marriage?
Child, early, and forced marriage are used interchangeably, often combined under the acronym CEFM. Child marriages are almost always forced marriages, as children cannot give legal consent and are often pressured by poverty and conflict into marriages of necessity.
10. Does child marriage affect boys too?
Yes. Boys are about one-sixth as likely as girls to experience child marriage — but that still leaves an estimated 115 million child grooms around the world. In Kenya, about 4% of men (roughly 2 million in total) were married before the age of 18. While girls are the disproportionate victims — comparatively, more than 25% of women in Kenya were married before 18 — all children deserve a childhood. At Kakenya’s Dream, boys are critical to our efforts to end child marriage.