Child marriages make families poorer: experts

CAIRO – 20 December 2017: The National Council for population recently launched a popular campaign to build and enforce legislation combating child marriage.

“As many as 250,000 children are annually born as a result of child marriages,” Vivian Fouad, a representative of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, told Egypt Today on Tuesday.

“Given the fact that child marriage cannot go through legal documentation and validation, the young wife is therefore denied her civil and legal rights, like filing for divorce and the right to inherit…Social traditions and rituals are not to be easily challenged, particularly in rural societies, but major changes always take time,” she said.

Fouad further illustrated that child marriages usually puts an end to girls’ schooling, offering them very minimal career opportunities so they would not be able fend for themselves if the marriage ends.

Also, Tarik Tawfik, rapporteur of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood at the Ministry of Health, said that girls older than age 18 are more capable to make it though pregnancy and more likely to survive childbirth and related complications. He added that those younger are often at risk of having miscarriages or their babies dying in childbirth.

Tawfik also stated that child marriages account for 20 percent of the annual birth rate and that those who are married off under 18 years of age are four times more likely to have premature babies than those who are impregnated over the age of 18.