In August 2021, the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan after a lightning military campaign in which they seized major cities in less than 10 days. Since then, a series of restrictive measures has been imposed, targeting girls and young women. In September 2021,...
In Iraq, a concerning legislative amendment is threatening the rights of children and women. The proposed amendment to the Personal Status Law is designed to legitimise religious marriages, opening the door to child marriages as young as nine years old. Not only does...
Despite the global progress achieved through international efforts to stop the practice of child marriages, this is still a reality for many children, and Roma children are no exception. Decades of ethnic marginalization, poverty, deeply rooted stereotypes of...
The widespread and harmful practice of child marriage is regrettably no novelty and it still, affects the children and young girls of Vietnam as an ongoing practice. Poverty, unequal access to education, social context, gender norms, harmful practices, ethnicity, and...
China has seen a marked increase in the trafficking of young women and girls for the purposes of marriage and sexual slavery. This trend is primarily a consequence of the longstanding one-child policy and the country’s preference for boys, which has catalysed a...
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most ratified international human rights treaty. Since its adoption in 1989, 196 countries have ratified the CRC, including Somalia and South Sudan which ratified it in 2015 (OHCRC, 2022). To date, the...
In the world, as we know it, marriage stands for a symbiosis of support and understanding. However, the sad reality is that not everyone gets the same chance to make it right. Whilst it is true that forced child marriage practice has decreased over time, we still have...
Despite the development of international and national children’s rights and the intensive work of civil society, Zimbabwe is still home to numerous child marriages, threatening the development and well-being of young girls. When a State is unable or unwilling to...
COVID-19 has exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities and amplified human rights challenges across the globe. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, young children from at-risk populations – girls in particular – have been forced to face an array of new...
The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the refugee and economic crisis in Lebanon has led to a staggering increase in child marriages amongst Syrian refugees in the country, where the rate of child marriage has increased four folds since the Syrian conflict...