Child Brides - Consequences contd 3...

The effects of child marriage a far reaching with multiple ripple effects that affect not just the girls but the community and a nation. The consequences of marrying young girls at tender ages also include:

• Illiteracy: Child brides are often pulled out of school and denied further education. Their children are also more likely to be illiterate.
  
• Poverty: Child brides - already poor - are isolated and denied education and employment opportunities, making it difficult for them break out of the cycle of poverty.
  
• Abuse and Violence: Child brides are more likely to experience domestic abuse, and violence than their peers who marry later.
  
• Mental Health: Violence and abuse can lead to post-traumatic stress and depression.
  
• Isolation and Abandonment: Child brides are often isolated from their peers and abandoned if they develop health problems like fistula.

Ethiopian child bride

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is designed to guarantee certain individual rights--which are abused by early marriage. Rights undermined or lost by children forced to marry early are:

1.    The right to an education.

2.   The right to be protected from physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, including sexual abuse, rape and sexual exploitation.

3.   The right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.

4.   The right to rest and leisure, and to participate freely in cultural life.

5.    The right to not be separated from parents against the child's will.

6.   The right to protection against all forms of exploitation affecting any aspect of the child’s welfare.

7.   The right to future employment.