The Global Slavery Index 2023

Spotlights: Understanding Forced and Child Marriage

​The ability to freely choose who, when, and whether to marry is an essential human right, yet forced marriages still occur in almost every country. Globally, an estimated 22 million people were living in a forced marriage on any given day in 2021. 
 
This estimate is conservative. UNICEF estimates there are 650 million women and girls who were married before the age of 18. While men and boys are also forced to marry, women and girls remain disproportionately at-risk and account for 68 per cent of all people forced to marry. While almost two-thirds of all forced marriages occur in the Asia and the Pacific region, the highest prevalence of forced marriage is in the Arab States. Despite this, forced marriage risks are present in all countries and are often exacerbated for members of marginalised groups. 
 
Family, survival, and social value 
While actors such as traffickers, marriage brokers, and armed groups can be involved in forced marriages, they are often a family matter. Seventy- three per cent of people in a forced marriage were forced to marry by their parents, with a further 16 per cent forced by other relatives. Over half (53 per cent) were coerced through emotional abuse and threats, including the threat of estrangement from family members and of self-harm by parents. 
 
Complex and intersecting factors increase the risk of forced and child marriage. These factors include gender biases, harmful cultural practices, poverty, sexuality, gender identity, socio-political instability, conflict, climate change, irregular migration, and a lack of access to education and employment, among many others. Geography also plays a large role in magnifying risk, as inequalities within and between countries can impact vulnerability to exploitation. Broadly, these risks are a function of survival needs or social value, although in practice these drivers are often intertwined. 
 
When basic needs are threatened, struggling families may turn to negative coping mechanisms to survive. Forced and child marriages are seen as practices that can reduce the economic burden on a household living in extreme poverty, protect vulnerable (and typically female) family members from sexual violence, ensure access to critical and limited resources, and provide certainty for a child’s future in times of crisis. Shocks spur risk as they exacerbate existing inequalities. Conflict can directly result in forced marriages, including where women and girls are abducted and forced to marry fighters. For people fleeing crises, risks can arise while on the move or in refugee camps. Among displaced populations, and in the absence of other opportunities, marriage can be seen as the best option to provide future security. At times, children themselves have made the decision to marry: for example, some Syrian refugee girls living in Lebanon have reportedly chosen marriage to escape poverty and abuse. Further, protracted instability can increase risk of forced and child marriage long after the initial ceremony and can entrench vulnerability across generations. 
 
Social values dictate when and for whom vulnerability to forced and child marriages increases. The risk of being forced to marry is typically higher for people who belong to multiple marginalised groups, based on sex assigned at birth, sexual preferences, gender identity, ability status, and belonging to a religious or ethnic minority group. Women and girls are disproportionately affected due to widespread gender biases that devalue girls from conception and throughout their lifetime. These biases are reflected in deeply entrenched patriarchal norms surrounding female purity, pre-marital sex, and traditional roles that keep women and girls out of work and the schoolroom, and limit them to roles of wives, mothers, and homemakers. In some communities, reaching menarche signals a girl is “ready” for marriage. 
 
Patriarchal gender roles also influence access to resources in the home. Parents who are unable to afford to send all of their children to school will prioritise the education of sons over daughters due to beliefs that boys have a greater future earning potential, while daughters are destined for another family. Globally, one out of every four adolescent girls aged between 15 to 19 years are neither in education, employment nor training, as compared to one-tenth of boys of the same age. However, these gender roles also influence boys’ risk of child marriage. While they are valued as economic contributors, and when resources are scarce, typically receive greater resources including access to food and schooling, an early start into economic independence can make boys more vulnerable. Much like norms that dictate girls’ physical maturity is a sign that they are “ready” for marriage, boys who enter the workforce and fill the role of “family provider” at a younger age face greater risks of child marriage. 
 
Harmful cultural practices, in turn, reinforce patriarchal social values and are closely linked to forced and child marriages. Norms that dictate heteronormativity can increase risks of forced marriage for LGBTQIA+ people, who may be coerced into heterosexual marriages by their families to “cure” them of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Similarly, norms that pigeonhole men and boys into hyper-masculine roles mean that male victims of forced marriage may not seek help for fear of being seen as effeminate or offending family honour. While less likely than females to be coerced into marriage through physical or sexual violence, nearly three-quarters of men and boys in forced marriages were coerced through threats or verbal abuse. 
 
Similarly, norms that prioritise chastity and sexual purity for women and girls increase risk of forced and child marriage. For example, female genital mutilation (FGM), which involves the cutting, injury, removal, or modification to female genitalia for non- medical purposes, is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood and can act as a precursor to a girl child marriage. FGM is performed on girls to promote chastity by reducing female sex drive. Similarly, fears of social stigma and the threat of damage to familial honour can force women and girls to marry their kidnappers in countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia, regions where bride kidnapping occurs. Of females living in a forced marriage on any given day in 2021, one in 10 had been forced through kidnapping or after being coerced to travel abroad. 

Walk Free 2023. Global Slavery Index 2023. Minderoo Foundation Ltd. Australia.