Pity the girl-brides

Every year, an estimated 14 million girls are forcibly married before they turn 18 . . . that’s something like 39,000 girls everyday! That was what girls-not-brides panelists told a 13,000-strong Women Deliver 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur recently. Pictures on video and publications show girls ages 8 to 13, were looking so unhappy and confused as they stood beside their mean-looking husbands, aged 40 to 70. What cruelty, I said as I watched the videos and agreed with panelists calling for the banning of a cultural practice prevalent in Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

The panelists said much of the practice is allowed by poor parents who believe that marrying their small daughters to elderly men will secure their future. I volunteered to say that in the Philippines, the present-day practice is human trafficking, i.e. parents selling their children to pedophiles to earn money.

It’s gratifying to note that anti-trafficking laws and movements are strongly calling for the banning of girl marriage and body selling. The impact of girl marriages on maternal mortality is enormous, to say the least.

According to a panelist at Women Deliver, the prevalence of child marriage and its impact on fertility in India suggests that just a 10 percent drop in child marriage could lead to a 70 percent drop in maternal mortality. In developing countries, she said, the leading cause of death for girls 15 to 19 years old is complications from pregnancy and childbirth. “This situation of ‘bonded labor,’ as it’s sometimes decried, also contributes to high morbidity rates, lower literacy rates, and harmful social norms where girls continue to be under-valued.

Anti-child marriage proponents said that girls who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their twenties. Child brides are vulnerable to obstetric fistula, a preventable yet debilitating injury resulting from obstructed labor or prolonged childbirth; 65% of all cases of obstetric fistula occur in girls under the age of 18.

Other data presented: Child brides are under intense social pressure from their husbands’ families to have children soon after marriage; they have little power to plan whether, when or how many children they want to have.

What a pity that a ten-year-old girl can only watch from her window her unmarried friends walking to school, then playing and frolicking in the sun, while she has to stay home to attend to the physical and sexual needs of her husband — who is her grandfather’s age. She’s one of many girls who wish they were dead. –Domini M. Torrevillas (The Philippine Star)