- UNICEF has disclosed that on a yearly basis, 12 million girls around the world under the age of 18, are getting married
- This number is expected to rise to 150 million by 2030 if the situation is allowed to continue at this current rate
- The global agency further disclosed that an estimated 650 million women alive today were married as children
An estimated 12 million girls under 18 are getting married every year globally, according to new data from UNICEF released on Tuesday, March 6, NAN reports.
The newly collated figures signal a 15 per cent drop in the last decade, from one in four to approximately one in five girls.
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NAIJ.com gathers that UNICEF warned that if child marriage continues at the current rate, more than 150 million girls across the world will marry before their 18th birthdays by 2030.
“When a girl is forced to marry as a child, she faces immediate and lifelong consequences.
“Her odds of finishing school decrease while her odds of being abused by her husband and suffering complications during pregnancy increase,” Anju Malhotra, UNICEF’s principal gender adviser, said in a statement.
In South Asia, there has been a decrease in the prevalence of child brides from 50 percent ten years ago to 30 percent today.
In sub-Saharan Africa there has also been a decline, with 43 percent of women married in childhood ten years ago compared to 38 percent today.
UNICEF said there has also been a shift in where the highest number of child brides are located, with close to one-third of all the most recently married child brides globally now in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to one in five a decade ago.
According to UNICEF, an estimated 650 million women alive today were married as children.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals sets out plans to end child marriage by 2030.
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Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that a 30-year-old man, Kelechi Ekeh, was accused of locking his wife, Mercy Ekeh in a room inside their apartment for seven months in Egbe, Lagos state.
Mr Ekeh had reportedly forced her to marry him at the age of 17, and kept her in captivity.
Narrating what happened at the Eiigbo Customary Court where she filed a suit for the dissolution of the marriage; Mercy said her ordeal started when she went to sit for the Joint Admission and Matriculation Examination.
According to her, Ekeh had accosted her along Liasu road in Egbe and cast a spell on her after he touched her. He commanded her to go to her parents’ house, bring her property and come to live with him.
How long should it take between a proposal and the actual wedding? - on NAIJ.com TV:
Source: Naija.ng