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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - UNICEF is calling for an end to child marriages, which are common in Africa and Asia, saying young girls suffer a physical and emotional toll from early marriage and motherhood.
Young brides tend to be pulled out of school prematurely, depriving them of one of their most basic rights to education, UNICEF said in a report released Wednesday, on the eve of International Women's Day.
In addition, pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15-19 worldwide, UNICEF said. While much of the high toll is due to poor health care, ``physical immaturity is the key risk for girls under 15,'' the report said.
``Forcing children, especially girls, into early marriages can be physically and emotionally harmful,'' UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said in a statement. ``It violates their rights to personal freedom and growth.''
Child marriages are most common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where poverty, traditional taboos about pre-marital sex and fears of AIDS are widespread.
Parents may feel that marrying off a daughter at a young age can help them economically while also keeping the girl ``safe'' from unwanted sexual advances, said the report, which was prepared by UNICEF's Innocenti Research Center in Florence, Italy.
The extreme cases of child marriages are in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, where 54 percent and 51 percent of girls respectively are married by the time they are 18, UNICEF said, citing U.N. economic statistics.
In Nepal, while the average age of a first marriage is 19, 7 percent of girls are married before they are 10 years old and 40 percent are married by the time they are 15, the report said.
UNICEF said early marriage constitutes a violation of a girl's human rights - primarily because it can deprive her of the right to give full and free consent to marry. Such a right is enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
UNICEF called for a governments and grassroots groups to discourage child marriages by educating parents and young people about the implications of the practice on girls.
National campaigns to raise the legal age of marriage and to
register all marriages can be a step in the right direction, the
report said.
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