by Nicola Jones, Elizabeth Presler-Marshall, Sarah Baird, Sara Luckenbill, Jennifer Seager, Shruthi Dileep, Khadija Mitu, Workneh Yadete
Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, published 28 February 2025.
Abstract
Over the past decade there has been burgeoning interest in better understanding the complex economic and social drivers of child marriage to support evidence-informed prevention efforts. By contrast, notwithstanding the estimated 12 million girls globally who marry each year as children, the evidence base on the consequences of child marriage is much thinner – as are programmatic efforts to support ever-married girls. Moreover, existing evidence focuses predominantly on the education, physical health, and income-generation challenges that married adolescents face. There is only limited research exploring the effects of child marriage on adolescent girls’ psychosocial well-being and mental health, particularly in conflict-affected contexts. To contribute to these research lacunae, this article draws on cross-country mixed-methods data with 8,567 young people aged 15–24 collected in three conflict-affected geographies between 2021 and 2023: the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Palestinian and Syrian refugee and host communities in Jordan; and two conflict-affected zones in Ethiopia.
Drawing on a capabilities conceptual framework, the research finds girls and women who married before age 18 have higher rates of emotional distress (as measured by the General Health Questionnaire-12), higher rates of depression (as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and are less resilient (as measured by the Child and Youth Resilience Measure) compared with their never-married peers. Girls who married as children also have significantly less access to socio-emotional support from friends and trusted adults. Mobility constraints shaped by conservative gender norms, and exclusion from educational opportunities further limit married girls’ opportunities to develop peer networks and to interact with service providers who could refer them to sources of information and support. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of these findings, especially the importance of investing in safe spaces for married girls to interact with peers and trusted adults, while simultaneously engaging with key gatekeepers, including husbands and in-laws.
From the Introduction
Notwithstanding significant progress in tackling child marriage, the practice remains common. According to the latest global survey estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (Citation2024), 19% of young women aged 20–24 were married as children, and 12 million girls still marry before the age of 18 each year (UNICEF, Citation2023).
To reach Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.3 to eliminate all harmful practices, including child marriage by 2030, the rate of change would need to accelerate almost 20-fold (UNICEF, Citation2023).
Girls who marry as children are disproportionately located in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) impacted by conflict and other humanitarian disasters (Presler-Marshall et al., Citation2020). The 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are classified as fragile, and research underscores that child marriage risks are exacerbated by conflict (Girls Not Brides, Citation2020; HRC – Human Rights Council, Citation2019; OCHA, Citation2019; UNICEF, Citation2020). State fragility and conflict also shapes sub-national vulnerability to child marriage, with girls (and some boys) who are internally displaced or living in regions particularly affected by violence more affected than their peers in non-fragile contexts (Girls Not Brides, Citation2020; HPC – Higher Population Council, Citation2017; UNICEF and UNFPA, Citation2020).