When I was eight, my friends and I spent our days imagining lands in which dragons and fairies ruled. When I was nine, my mother and father taught me how to protect myself from the foes that lurked in every dark corner. When I was ten, I developed my first childhood crush. However, in some third world countries, young girls are given away, sometimes even sold to much older men. Child brides are forced to mature and develop in the span of just a few short years and after their wedding they are expected to take on roles that were meant for young women.
Some countries have passed laws that are supposed to protect girls from being married off to older men. However, these laws also allow the government to make exceptions and ask the parents to sign a waiver stating there are aware of the marriage. In countries such as India and Niger, politicians and humanitarians have attempted to modernize the laws in their country, but keep falling short due to the fact that child marriage is a part of their cultural heritage.
Although some parents believe they are acting in their daughter’s best interests by marrying her off at a such a young age, child marriage should be banned altogether because it causes psychological damage and robs girls of their childhood. Some have argued that child marriage is necessary and is a part of their heritage and way of life. Many parents believe that straying from tradition could result in being ostracized from the community. It is also a well-known fact that by marrying off their child to an established man, they are minimizing the family expenses by ensuring there is one less person to cloth, feed, and educate.
Some parents believe that by sending their daughter to live with her husband, they are protecting her from otherwise harmful situations, such as sexual abuse or assault. In addition to protecting their daughters, selling their daughters also provides additional income for the family. In some countries, the bride’s family has to pay the fiance to marry their daughter; the parents are required to pay less if their daughter is underage and illiterate. Still, child marriage practices are continuing and should end because it forces young girls to grow up at an accelerated rate.
Psychologically, girls who under-aged are not mature enough to take on the role of being the wife of a much older man. Child marriage has been linked to obesity, and depression. A study that was published in 1996 edition of Pediatrics, raised awareness of a new trend among adolescent girls; they discovered that while girls may be ahead intellectually, their emotional maturity is stunted. Frank M. Biro of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center stated that, ‘We interact with girls as they appear,’ Biro says.
People relate to an early-maturing girl as if she is older than she is, but there is really no correlation between age of onset of puberty and one’s social or emotional maturation’ (Scientific American, Paragraph 8). The brains of young girls and teens are simply unable to consume the information it needs in order to be a part of an adult relationship because the side of the brain that is still forming is not yet ready to engage in the mature situations that child marriage forces upon them.
Their minds are able to absorb knowledge, but their emotions are usually not prepared to handle it in a way that it is healthy and beneficial. Young girls should not be forced to live with the aftermath of marrying older, more mature man simply because of early “pubertal timing”, which serves it initiate century old traditions. In short, children simply need more time to mature and process the information that is being forced upon them. Child marriages are also considered human rights violations because they deny girls access to individual choices and right to enjoy their childhood.
According to the World Health Organization child marriage “denies a girl her childhood, disrupts her education, limits her possibilities, and increases her risk of violence and jeopardizes her health” (NCBI, Paragraph 7). Young girls are forced to marry elderly men to help their families pay for basic necessities or pay off a family debt. In many countries, the marriageable age for women is abnormally low due to the fact the government set two different legal ages for men and women; in some countries the legal age of consent for girls is as low as sixteen.
The leaders of such countries attempt to justify these legal limits of girls by saying—stating that girls mature faster than boys. However, I believe that girls should be allowed to mature and live with their parents until they are old enough to marry a suitor of their choosing. While some parents and politicians believe that child marriage is a necessary practice, this tradition should be banned in every country because it denies disadvantaged girls’ access to a childhood and should be considered a human rights violation.
I am fortunate to live in a country that has made great strides towards protecting women’s rights; however, girls in under-privileged societies are subject to psychological damage and assault simply because they live in poor and violence-ridden communities. Nevertheless, this practice has done nothing to prevent the cycle of poverty and illiteracy from continuing, which is why it should be banned. No girl should ever be subject to abuse, low mortality and illiteracy rates, and poverty simply because they weren’t able to dictate their childhood and be surrounded by love and happiness.
