U.S. Joins Global Campaign to Stop Child Marriage

This girl in Niger was married to a 23-year-old man in 2011 just after her 12th birthday. Niger has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world.

By Charlene Porter | Staff Writer | 10 October 2012

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced October 10 that the United States will join a campaign to stop child marriage by the year 2030.

Clinton made the announcement before an audience of Girl Scouts, invited to the State Department in recognition of the International Day of the Girl, a U.N. commemoration set for October 11.

The secretary began began her remarks by describing a "very brave" Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai. She has achieved wide recognition for her assertion of girls' rights to education, but was shot October 9 in an attack by extremists opposed to the education of women. Clinton said, "Yesterday’s attack reminds us of the challenges that girls face, whether it’s poverty or marginalization or even violence, just for speaking out for their basic rights."

The U.S. State Department has a history of denouncing child marriage, but Clinton committed the nation to greater efforts to end the practice in the next 17 years.

Each year, 10 million girls under 18 are forced into marriage, Clinton said, “which robs them of the opportunity to continue education, and it threatens health and traps them in lives of poverty.”

In keeping with her previously announced intention to keep the concerns of girls and women at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, Clinton outlined the steps the nation will take to help end child marriage:

• The State Department will focus greater attention on the issue in its annual global assessment of human rights.

• The U.S. Agency for International Development will join the government of Bangladesh in a campaign to assess a variety of approaches to discourage child marriage.

• USAID and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) will tackle barriers, such as cost and safety, that keep girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from continuing their education.

• Every international teacher who comes to the United States for training programs will learn how to help girls stay in school and complete their education.

The announcement came at a celebration of the United Nations' first International Day of the Girl. The day is intended as part of a movement to denounce gender bias and advocate for girls’ rights everywhere. The date was chosen because of its numeric representation, 10-11-12. Those are the ages when life can become dangerous for maturing girls, who might be sold into marriage or forced labor, the United Nations said.

The campaign “Girls Not Brides: the Global Partnership to End Child Marriage” is championed by The Elders, a group of internationally known leaders who work together for global peace and justice. South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu is chairman of the group, which includes former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

Tutu joined Clinton at the State Department for the event, speaking to the audience of girls with a mix of tenderness, admiration and inspiration.

“Without women the world faces perdition, destruction,” he said. “We need you, we need you to save us.”

While he acknowledged that society has advanced considerably in its acceptance of women in roles of influence and power, more progress must be made, Tutu said. He challenged the young people to keep on dreaming, to dream of a better future for everyone, everywhere.

“Dream of a different world, where every child has access to clean water, and every child has enough food to eat,” Tutu said. “We want to make poverty history; we want to make child marriage history.”

But The Elders aren’t merely dreaming. The “Girls Not Brides” campaign has won the backing of generous donors. The U.N. Population Fund is contributing $20 million, and another $25 million is coming from the Ford Foundation, Clinton said.

The transition from primary to secondary school is a life passage in the lives of many girls in the developing world when too many lose the opportunity to pursue further education. Devising ways to make that passage a successful one is another part of this campaign, Clinton said, and it is receiving $39 million from the MasterCard Foundation and $10 million from the MacArthur Foundation.

Almost 200 organizations in 38 countries are supporting the “Girls Not Brides” campaign.