violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“I hate early marriage. I was married at an early age and my in-laws forced me to sleepwith my husband and he made me suffer all night. After that, whenever day becomes night,I get worried thinking that it will be like that. That is what I hate most.”Girl, 11, married at 5, Eastern and Southern Africa, 2005 VI58Violence against children in the home and familyriage of girls under the age of 16, and someforbid marriage under the age of 18, such lawsare frequently ignored: marriages are not registered,customary or religious rules are accepted,with few cases resulting in court proceedings.It is estimated that, globally, 82 million girls nowbetween 10–17 years of age will marry beforetheir 18th birthday. 71 This includes significantnumbers of girls married at much younger ages.In Nepal, for example, 7% of girls are marriedby the time they are 10, and 40% by the ageof 15. 72 In the Amhara region of Ethiopia, 40%of girls in rural areas are married by the age of15, 73 in some cases following abduction and rapein order to avoid bride price. In all such cases,the notion of consent to the marriage by eitherpartner, especially the girl, and to the sex withinit, does not apply. In settings where a girl is sentto her in-laws once agreement between the familieswith respect to the marriage has been made,sex within the union often begins at the age of10 or 11, before the girl has menstruated.Physical, sexual and psychologicalviolenceMarried girls experience a significant amountof violence from their husbands. A recentanalysis of Demographic and Health Surveys(DHS) data showed that spousal violence hadbeen experienced in the previous 12 months by4% of girls aged 15 to 19 in Cambodia, 15.4%in the Dominican Republic, 21.0% in Egypt,25.4% in Haiti, 10.4% in India, 18.2% inNicaragua, and 33.3% in Zambia. 74 In thesecountries, younger women and women whomarried at the earliest ages reported the mostintimate partner violence.Physical violence against married girls by theirspouses can include pushing, shaking, slapping,punching, biting, kicking, dragging,strangling, burning, and threatening/attackingwith a weapon. In societies with a customof dowry, intimate partner violence against theyoung bride can result from her family’s failureto pay the dowry, or her husband’s or in-laws’dissatisfaction with the amount.Studies of domestic violence and dowry-relatedharassment show that close relatives, especiallymembers of the husband’s family, play importantroles in perpetrating violence againstwomen. Often the perpetrator is the husband,assisted by the mother- in-law. 75 However,in some cases the husband’s relatives are themain perpetrators of violence and harassmentagainst the young bride. 76,77,78 A studyfrom India revealed that, among women whoreported physical violence and harassment dueto dissatisfaction with the dowry, the familymember who most frequently harassed was themother-in-law (95%), followed by the husbandand father-in-law (72% each), sister-inlaw(49%), and brother-in-law (14%). 79Many married girls experience sexual violencefrom their partners; they may be physicallyforced, or threatened into having sexual intercourseagainst their will, or they may havesexual intercourse because they are afraid ofwhat their partner will do if they refuse, orthey may be forced to do something sexualthat they find degrading or humiliating. Insocieties where the cultural norm is for men tohave unlimited sexual access to women uponmarriage, married girls are likely to experienceforced and traumatic sexual initiation. 80