Child marriage robs girls of agency and bodily autonomy, often undermining their emotional, sexual and reproductive health. Data have the power to accelerate progress in ending this harmful practice by 2030, as called for in the Sustainable Development Goals. Read a brief overview of the Child Marriage Data Portal: its purpose, content and features.
Child marriage is widely recognized as a human rights violation, yet it persists. To address this problem, four countries that are home to a large share of the world’s child brides have renewed their commitment to ending child marriage.
UNICEF’s recent analyses on the intersection of education with child marriage and female genital mutilation offer support for the argument that universal, quality education is one of the most powerful tools we have to end harmful practices, and to prevent them from being passed onto the next generation.