COVID's influence could mean millions more kid marriages: UNICEF
08 March, 2021
The outsized impact COVID-19 has already established on ladies in some countries could lead to yet another 10 million child marriages in this decade, according to a new analysis released Mon by UNICEF.
"School closures, monetary stress, assistance disruptions, pregnancy and parental deaths due to the pandemic are putting the virtually all vulnerable girls at increased risk of kid marriage," said a report titled "COVID-19: A good threat to progress against child marriage."
That trend, if confirmed, would represent a significant retreat from recent years of progress against child marriage.
In the last a decade, in line with the study, the proportion of young girls globally who were married as children had declined by 15 percent, from nearly one in four to 1 in five.
That progress "is now under threat," said the analysis, released on International Women's Day.
"COVID-19 possesses made an already hard situation for an incredible number of girls even worse," said UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore.
"Shuttered universities, isolation from good friends and support systems, and rising poverty have added gasoline to a fire the community was already struggling to place out."
Girls who marry found in childhood, the analysis said, will experience household violence and less inclined to stay in school. They encounter an increased threat of early on and unplanned pregnancy, and maternal issues and mortality.
Isolation from friends and family can take "much toll on their mental health."
Meantime, pandemic-related travel restrictions and physical distancing have made it harder for girls "to access medical care, social providers and network support that protect them from child marriage, unnecessary pregnancy and gender-established violence," while so that it is more likely that they drop out of institution.
In addition, families facing economical hardship might seek to marry off their daughters to ease financial burdens.
The report estimates that 650 million girls and women alive today were married in childhood, about half of these in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India or Nigeria.
Fore called for countries to reopen academic institutions, implement legal reforms, ensure usage of health insurance and social services even though providing measures to protect families.
In so doing, she said, "we are able to considerably reduce a girl's threat of having her childhood stolen through child marriage."
Source: japantoday.com