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Early Marriage


Last week, I met one of my childhood friends. Speechless, we both stared at each other with tearful eyes. We had not met since she was married off by her parents when she was studying in class 8. Even then, she had cried so much and had asked for my help. But we both were helpless to do anything.

Now, a mother of two, she had once dreamt of being a nurse. (Ironically, she is now nursing her husband and children.) In school, she used to tell me about how she would become a nurse, work in a hospital, earn money, and be a renowned person. But all her dreams shattered when she got married. Mired in poverty, she now looked much older than she really was.

While the number of seminars and discussions on women’s empowerment is increasing, many innocent girls suffer the fate of my friend. Women’s empowerment requires removal of all obstacles to women’s participation in all spheres of public and private life. But by denying girls opportunities and compromising their development in areas such as education, livelihood skills and personal growth, early marriage violates a girl’s right to a secure future. The young bride is put under great pressure to become a woman and a mother at a time when she is ill-prepared for these roles, lacking decision-making and negotiating skills and capabilities which would help develop as a person.

When girls are married off when still in school, they are deprived of education. Low level of education in turn means poor health and low self-esteem. Early marriage means girls are disempowered and made victims of gender-based inequality at an early age.

The fact that early marriage is still in practice in underdeveloped countries like Nepal underscores the level of poverty in these places. A family marries off daughters early to lessen its economic burden. Though the heard of governments commit themselves to reduce global poverty and make rights to development ‘a reality for everyone’ (UN 2002, 8), the majority of women   in the world still live on less than a dollar a day. Women, thus, suffer doubly—because of their gender and their poverty.

Marriage practices in the underdeveloped countries like Nepal are to a large extent responsible for denying women choice, hampering their capacity building, and compromising their human rights. In Nepal, marriage is still not negotiable. A girl does not have any say in it.

It’s high time that we worked collectively against child marriage. We will never be able to bring back the young days of those condemned to early marriage. But we can work to ensure that no other girl suffers this fate in the future.
(Published in The Kathmandu Post)

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