Child marriage - Frequently Asked Questions

What is child marriage?

Why does child marriage happen?

How common is child marriage?

Where does child marriage happen?

How old are the children involved in child marriages?

What is the usual age difference between a child bride and her husband?

Are boys ever married off while still children?

What are the consequences of child marriage?

Is child marriage legal?

Is it insensitive to interfere with other countries’ religious or​ cultural traditions around child marriage?

How can the world end child marriage?

What will it cost to end child marriage?

What is the difference between child marriage, early marriage and forced marriage?

What does teen pregnancy have to do with child marriage?

What is child marriage?

Child marriage is a marriage or union in which one or both spouses are under 18 years old. Although this definition sounds straightforward, the realities of child marriage can be complicated. Both the words “child” and “marriage” are sometimes interpreted differently. Child marriage can affect girls and boys; however, adolescent girls are the most affected.

Formal marriage could be under civil law and/or religious law, or customary laws and practices. An informal union is one in which a couple live together for some time, intending to have a lasting relationship, but do not have a formal civil or religious ceremony. United Nations resolutions refer to the term “child, early and forced marriage”. This creates the impression that these terms are distinct. In fact, they are overlapping.

The internationally recognized definition of a child – established by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), one of the most universally endorsed and widely ratified treaties in history – is “every human being below the age of 18 years”. This is also the legal definition used in most parts of the world.

But in a small number of countries, adulthood, or the “age of majority,” may be reached before age 18. (The CRC makes an exception for national laws recognizing an earlier age of majority.) Some countries and cultures consider adulthood a state achieved upon marriage – for example, countries where full age means the age of 18 years and above, and any married woman is deemed to be of full age, even if she is under 18. And other countries have an older minimum age of marriage, such as Nepal, where the law requires both men and women to be at least 20 when they marry.

The concept of marriage also varies; it can be formal or informal, governed by civil law, common law or religious law, or simply be a customary practice. In many parts of the world, for example, marriages may be recognized by the community without legal registration, marked simply with a ceremony. In countries where polygamous marriage is not permitted by civil law, second and third marriages often take place without formal registration.

Major surveys try to account for this variation when measuring child marriage. Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys, for example, collect information on the date and age at which women and men were married or first started living with their first spouses or partners.

Regardless of these varying definitions, child marriage is a serious human rights violation that directly threatens the lives, health, safety, education, economic opportunities and overall well-being of girls and boys, limiting their future prospects.

Why does child marriage happen?

It can be hard to imagine why someone would choose to have their child married off. But for millions of people, child marriage can seem like the best – or only – option.

In societies marked by pervasive gender inequality, daughters are often viewed as burdens or commodities. Impoverished parents often believe marriage will secure a daughter’s future by making a husband or his family responsible for her care. This may be the case when parents face economic hardships or when girls are forced by poverty or circumstance to drop out of school. In places where the bride’s family pays a dowry to the groom’s family, younger brides typically command smaller dowries, creating an incentive for parents to marry their daughters off early. In places where the groom’s family pays a bride price, parents in difficult circumstances may marry off their daughters as a source of income.

Parents – especially in humanitarian crises – often view marriage as a way to protect their daughters, including from sexual violence. The prevalence of child marriage increases during crises – from the chaos of war to climate change and natural disasters – as families endure both economic instability and fear of violence. Yet child marriage itself leads to girls experiencing high levels of sexual, physical and emotional violence from their intimate partners.

Although most adolescent pregnancies in the developing world take place among girls who are already married, in some places, teenage pregnancy – or even the possibility of teenage pregnancy – prompts parents to marry off their daughters to preserve family honour. This is seen in both wealthy and poor countries where communities consider pregnancy outside of marriage to be shameful. In some cases,  girls may even be forced to marry rapists to spare their families the stigma associated with unmarried pregnancy.

And not all child marriages are the result of parents’ or guardians’ decisions. Often, adolescents themselves decide to marry or enter an informal union living with their partner, whether a peer or an older individual. These marriages may be a way to exercise independence and agency, leave home or escape difficult circumstances, including desperate poverty or family violence. Restrictions on adolescent sexuality outside of marriage also drive some adolescents to see marriage as the only way to be sexually active.

In most cases, child marriage is the result of girls and families having few choices. Overwhelmingly, when young people have a choice, they marry later.

How common is child marriage?

Child marriage is actually very common.

More than 640 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Nineteen per cent of women between the ages of 20 and 24 around the world were child brides. And while child marriage is most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, it also takes place in high-income countries.

The good news is that global child marriage rates are slowly falling. Around 2000, one in three women between the ages of 20 and 24 reported they had been married as children. In 2021, this number dropped to under one in five. Rates of child marriage before age 15 also fell, from 11 per cent in 2000 to 5 per cent in 2021. Recent data show that 68 million child marriages were averted in the last 25 years.

Still, progress has been uneven, and child marriage is not declining fast enough. Because of population growth in regions where child marriage is more prevalent, such as West and Central Africa, the rate of decline is slow, and the total number of child marriages is projected to increase by 2030. COVID-19 has also set back efforts and exacerbated pressures on families, thus leading to projected increases in child marriage. To change this, we must accelerate our actions to end the practice. 

South Asia has seen dramatic declines in child marriage over the last decade, and now the global burden of child marriage is shifting to sub-Saharan Africa. Today, sub-Saharan Africa has some of the highest rates of child marriage. South Asia is home to the largest number of child brides.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, child marriage most often takes the form of an informal union. Declines in child marriage in this region are stagnated, and progress has not been observed over the last 25 years. By 2030, the region is expected to become second to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of prevalence.

Where does child marriage happen?

Child marriage takes place all over the world.

It even happens in developed countries – including the United States and the United Kingdom. Many people assume that when child marriage takes place in affluent countries, it involves only immigrant communities. This is not the case. Child marriage is known to take place across a wide range of communities, ethnicities and religions.

Still, child marriage is much more common in the developing world because one of the main driving factors is poverty.

Nearly half of child brides live in South Asia (45 per cent), with the next largest share in sub-Saharan Africa (20 per cent), followed by East Asia and the Pacific (15 per cent), Latin America and the Caribbean (9 per cent), Middle East and North Africa (6 per cent) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (3 per cent). The highest prevalence of child marriage is seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three adolescent girls are marrying before age 18.

How old are the children involved in child marriages?

Children can be married off at any age. The most common ages at which children are married are 16 and 17.

Marriages that take place before age 15 are considered “very early marriages.” These marriages have a particularly negative impact on girls, interrupting their education earlier and jeopardizing their health more acutely. Research by UNFPA shows that child marriage rates increase gradually until age 14 and accelerate significantly thereafter at ages 15 through 17. The majority of child marriage thus occurs in middle adolescence. 

In circumstances where parents are under enormous pressure to marry off their daughters – for those living in extreme poverty or in humanitarian crises and conflict settings, for instance – marriages have been reported among girls around 11 or 12 because girls are seen both as being ready for marriage and at risk of sexual violence.

In some cases, children are as young as five when they are married, although this is rare. Extremely young brides and grooms are sometimes married in ceremony only but live with their parents until they reach adolescence.

What is the usual age difference between a child bride and her husband?

Children who are married – and they are overwhelmingly girls – tend to have spouses who are much older. When this is the case, the girls are generally more vulnerable and less able to advocate for their needs, aspirations and rights.

Demographic and Health Surveys (tools for collecting key health and demographic information) even track age differences between girls and their spouses. This information is used as one of a variety of factors to evaluate the well-being of girls in a community.

Still, child marriages are not always unions between girls and much-older men. In some communities, it is customary to wed girls and boys of similar ages. And there are also cases of adolescents marrying one another voluntarily – sometimes called “love marriages” – and entering cohabiting unions forbidden by family members. Such marriages can put young people at risk of retributive violence,  lack of economic support, abandonment and social isolation.

Are boys ever married off while still children?

While the vast majority of child marriages involve girls, boys can also be married off. 

While boys are affected by child marriage, girls remain disproportionately so, with 1 in 5 young women aged 20 to 24 years old married before their 18th birthday, compared with 1 in 30 young men. Child marriage rates for boys are very low, even in countries where child marriage among girls is relatively high. 

Recent data from 82 countries show that child marriage among boys is prevalent across a range of countries around the world, spanning sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific.

According to the evidence, the Central African Republic has the highest prevalence of child marriage among males (28 per cent), followed by Nicaragua (19 per cent) and Madagascar (13 per cent). The prevalence of child marriage among boys varies across regions, with the highest average levels seen in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (8.3 per cent) and East Asia and the Pacific (5.9 per cent).

Only 11 countries with data show a child marriage prevalence for boys over 10 per cent – including the Central African Republic, Cuba, Comoros, Honduras, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Madagascar, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Nepal and Thailand. 

Ending child marriage among boys requires programmes and policies designed to systematically address the patriarchal gender norms and stereotypes that influence child marriage for boys, such as pressures to marry as soon as economic independence is achieved. This perpetuates cycles of poverty.

What are the consequences of child marriage?

Child marriage undermines children’s human rights and derails their lives and future opportunities.

At the most basic level, it denies children the right to choose – with full and free consent and without coercion or fear – whom to marry and when. This is one of life’s most important decisions.

And there are additional consequences. Child brides are more likely to become pregnant before their bodies are mature, increasing the risks of both maternal and newborn morbidity and death. In developing countries, the majority of births to adolescent girls occur within a marriage or a union. In these countries, where access to sexual and reproductive health services is generally low, complications from pregnancy and childbirth can be fatal. In fact, globally, these complications are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls.

Children who are married off are also vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV. Contributing to this problem is the fact that girls who have dropped out of school are more vulnerable to child marriage and less likely to be equipped with information about protecting themselves from STIs and unplanned pregnancy.

Child brides are particularly vulnerable to violence and abuse. Young women married as children are 1.5 times more likely to experience physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence than young women married as adults. They are less able to advocate for themselves and less able to escape abusive relationships. Mental health issues are common among child brides due, among other reasons, to their experience of violence. Girls who marry young are also more likely to be subjected to physical and sexual intimate partner violence.

Married girls rarely continue in school because they are expected to assume significant domestic and reproductive responsibilities. This limits their future potential and makes it harder for their families to escape poverty.

Lack of education and empowerment also mean adolescent girls are less able to advocate for the well-being of their own children. The children of child brides have higher mortality rates, worse nutritional outcomes and tend to be less educated.

Girls in informal unions living with their partners experience many of the same consequences. However, those living in informal unions are particularly vulnerable due to a lack of legal protections.

Cumulatively, child marriage takes an enormous toll on countries, communities, workforces and economies, and the loss is carried over generations.

Is child marriage legal?

Child marriage is almost universally banned.

Two of the most broadly endorsed human rights agreements in the world, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), address child marriage. The CRC establishes the internationally agreed definition of a child, and the right of children to health, education, protection from violence and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, all of which are violated by child marriage. The CEDAW states unequivocally: “The betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory.” Together, these treaties have been signed or ratified by every country except one.

Still, there are some national laws that enable different interpretations of this agreed principle. Many countries permit exceptions with parental consent or under religious or customary law. Despite the fact that many countries have legal provisions that prohibit marriage below the age of 18, major gaps persist in eliminating both legal exceptions and gender discrimination.

Even in places where child marriage is clearly legally prohibited, enforcement can be complicated by the fact that many child marriages – and many marriages in general – are not legally registered. 

For this reason, UNFPA works with governments, civil society organizations and academics to advocate for stronger laws, age- and gender-responsive policies and greater public investment to end child marriage.

Is it insensitive to interfere with other countries’ religious or cultural traditions around child marriage?

Child marriage is sometimes misrepresented as a religiously or culturally mandated practice. There are no major religious traditions that require child marriage. Yet child marriage persists, across many cultures and religions. Child marriage does not warrant protection as a cultural or religious practice. In fact, governments around the world have overwhelmingly, and independently, recognized child marriage as a violation of human rights.

In places where child marriage persists, evidence about its harms is usually convincing to policymakers, community leaders, religious leaders and parents. In fact, there are many examples of cultural and religious leaders taking a strong stance against child marriage. But prohibitions alone are not always sufficient, because child marriage is typically the result of a lack of choices and because it is viewed as a protective social institution. Families, girls and communities need alternatives to child marriage that can take the form of education and employment opportunities, social protection from income loss and catastrophic expenditures and safer, more stable living environments.

How can the world end child marriage?

Laws prohibiting child marriage need to be enacted, strengthened and enforced. And more attention is needed to related laws, such as on bride price and dowry, marital rape, birth and marriage registration and mandatory schooling.

But laws alone will not end child marriage.

Fundamentally, gender equality must be advanced. When educating daughters is considered as worthwhile as educating sons, when communities – both men and women – give equal weight to the future potential of girls and boys, there is less motivation to engage in child marriage.

Adolescent girls and boys are less likely to want to marry before age 18 when they are empowered with information about their sexual and reproductive health and when they can decide freely and responsibly matters related to their sexuality, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.

Improved circumstances for families can also reduce the incentive to marry off children. Families, including girls, need to be able to live in peace and move in safety. And poverty and economic inequality, which drive so many child marriages, must be eradicated. For this, many changes are needed, including social safety nets for girls and their families, as well as improved access to quality education, health services and economic opportunities.

Adolescent girls can play an important role in ending child marriage – when they know their rights and have access to the right information and opportunities. UNFPA has seen that when girls are empowered to claim their rights, they can persuade their families to delay or cancel engagements. Instead, they have a better chance of staying in school, gaining life skills and supporting their families economically. Many have been inspired to become advocates and leaders in their communities.

UNFPA and its partners work to bring these changes to the most vulnerable adolescent girls. The UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage is reaching girls in 12 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and mobilizing a movement against child marriage globally. The programme takes a gender-transformative approach to empowering girls with life skills and comprehensive sexuality education, increasing girls’ access to education and healthcare services and educating parents and communities on the consequences of child marriage, thus transforming harmful gender norms and stereotypes at the community levels. The Global Programme also contributes to a more girl-responsive legal and policy environment, generating data and evidence on what works to address child marriage and related issues, such as adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence and HIV.

What will it cost to end child marriage?

In November 2019, UNFPA released a joint study with the Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with Victoria University, the University of Washington and Avenir Health, assessing the price tag to end child marriage in 68 countries that account for about 90 per cent of the phenomenon. Ending child marriage in these countries by 2030, researchers concluded, is surprisingly affordable: it would cost just $35 billion.

In other words, it costs roughly $600 to spare each child bride.

The $35 billion investment – in educational interventions, empowerment initiatives and programmes that change social norms around child marriage – would avert approximately 58 million child marriages. On top of that, girls who escape early marriage will be able to “make a more productive contribution to the household enterprise,” yielding significant benefits to their communities over time.

What is the difference between child marriage, early marriage and forced marriage?

People occasionally refer to the term “child, early and forced marriage.” This creates the impression that these terms are distinct. In fact, they are overlapping.

Child marriage and early marriage largely refer to the same thing: marriages in which one or both spouses are under 18 years old. However, early marriage is also sometimes used to describe marriages in which both spouses are 18 or older but other factors make them unready to consent to marriage, such as their level of physical, emotional, sexual and psychosocial development, or a lack of information regarding the person’s life options.

Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or both spouses do not give full and free consent, regardless of age. Forced marriage can also refer to a union in which one or both spouses are unable to end or leave the marriage.

Because in most countries children are not considered able to give legal consent, all child marriages are sometimes considered forced marriages. However, there are many instances of two adolescents under the age of 18 marrying each other voluntarily, called “love marriages” in some contexts.

What does teen pregnancy have to do with child marriage?

Adolescent pregnancy is both a driver and a consequence of child marriage.

In the developing world, a majority of adolescent births (those among girls between the ages of 15 and 19) take place among girls who are already married or in union. This means that child marriage is often a precursor to early pregnancy, which poses a host of health risks to girls whose bodies may not yet be mature enough for motherhood. Globally, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among adolescent girls.

In some places, the causality is reversed. While most adolescent childbearing occurs within marriage, it is not uncommon for first births that occur within marriage to be the result of premarital conceptions. The median proportion of adolescent girls whose pregnancy preceded marriage but resulted in a birth within marriage is 18 per cent; this phenomenon is more common in Africa than in other regions. Adolescent pregnancy is often an incentive for parents to marry their daughters off. This is seen in countries all over the world where communities see pregnancy outside marriage as shameful. In cases where pregnancy is the outcome of sexual violence,  girls may even be forced to marry rapists to spare their families the stigma associated with unmarried pregnancy.

Globally, child marriage and adolescent pregnancy are two major life events that have a significant and disproportionate negative impact on adolescent girls. One in five girls globally is married as a child, and a third of women begin childbearing in adolescence. 

Because of this, UNFPA is working with men, women and young people, including adolescent girls, to address the root causes of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy – economic inequality, gender inequality, fears and taboos around adolescent sexuality, limited access to health services, and increasingly, factors such as conflict and climate-related fragility. UNFPA also supports married girls and those in unions, particularly with sexual and reproductive health services and essential services responding to gender-based violence.

Updated 17 February 2025