- Marriage and early unions have a profound impact on the lives of girls and adolescents, leading them to disconnect from support networks, school dropouts, early pregnancy, social isolation, gender violence, loss of job opportunities, impacts on physical and mental health.
- It is necessary to evaluate and prevent the consequences of the relationship and connection between pregnancy, marriage and early union, through articulation that includes all generators of public policies in relation to childhood.
According to UNICEF figures, 1 in 4 girls in Latin America and the Caribbean marries or enters an early union before the age of 18, a complex phenomenon related to gender inequalities, poverty, school dropouts, violence and adolescent pregnancy. Child marriage puts girls' lives and health at risk, as well as limiting their future prospects. [1]
On the impact on the lives of adolescents and young people around early unions, during the webinar organized by the Initiative Weaving Childhood Nets for Latin America and the Caribbean, Shelly Abdool, Regional Advisor in UNICEF-LAC Gender and Development He said that alarmingly the situation has not been reversed for 25 years in the region with profound, particular and complex impacts, such as the disconnection of support networks, school dropouts, early pregnancy, social isolation, gender violence, loss of opportunities labor and impacts on physical and mental health.
While Juan Martín Pérez García, Regional Coordinator of #TejiendoRedesInfancia pointed out that the red flags regarding unions or early marriages in the region have worsened during confinement, some of them derived from sexual violence, and challenging the states to guarantee a prompt response. "The phenomenon intersects with cultural factors such as machismo and patriarchy where girls are placed as an object of protection, but also of desire", full.
Valeria Vasquez de la civil association ELIGE, Youth Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights AC in Mexico said that it is necessary to address the root causes of early unions, as well as the opportunities that are offered to girls and adolescents in terms of access to education or decent employment. "We cannot deny that there are adolescents in situations of poverty, violence or inequality who choose unions, marriages and early pregnancies as the only way out of hope and development", referred.
Esmirna, a young activist from the Dominican Republic, described the situation as alarming and pointed out that in her country there are girls who stop attending classes after an early union or early pregnancy, often due to lack of support, others of their own free will or in some cases due to the situation of discrimination or harassment by other classmates or classmates, or even by the teaching team.
Also from the Dominican Republic, Paula Disla of the National Council for Children and Adolescents (CONANI) stated that early unions and teenage pregnancies go hand in hand, and should be addressed jointly, evaluating the consequences of the relationship and link between pregnancy and early union, through articulation that includes all generators of public policies in relation to to children, such as ministries of education, health, work, justice and all those that involve integral development. "Each institution must assume its role, through the articulation of systems, including the opinions of girls and adolescents", complement.
For Shelly Abdoo, it is important to work in the prevention and accompaniment of girls and adolescents who are already in a situation of early union. “What we have learned is that girls have to be at the center of solutions, understanding their lives and their realities, at the individual, family and political response levels at all levels. There is no individual actor that can reverse the situation, intersectoral and inter-institutional work is necessary ", he referred.
Some of the long-term consequences generated by early pregnancies is that adolescent children regularly have few opportunities to reach or complete university studies, increasing poverty levels and unequal relationships. Fortunately there are governments that do not legally allow early unions, but that does not inhibit them; therefore, Juan Martín Pérez pointed out as urgent the integral accompaniment, without criminalization towards adolescents or young women.
Valeria Vásquez pointed out that in order to give girls and adolescents the opportunity to develop skills and capacities that allow them to make decisions in the construction of their life project within the framework of well-being, it is necessary to eliminate the imaginaries that sustain romantic love, which entails that adolescents and girls sometimes do wish to be in marriage, in addition to the important recognition of the exercise of sexual reproductive rights, as a pillar of the promotion of human rights, without criminalizing the exercise of sexuality.
Finally, Juan Martín Pérez pointed out that we are immersed in a battle against patriarchal and macho culture, which also has to do with public policy frameworks, and with the anthropological vision of decision-makers who, due to cultural aspects, still permeate in Latin America, taboos and criminalization towards young women living in union, marriage or early pregnancy are normalized.
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Ollin.TV is an Internet television channel created as part of Weaving Childhood Networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, an initiative co-financed by the European Union, which seeks to contribute to the strengthening and consolidation of a platform for the defense of children and adolescents in 20 countries of America Latin and the Caribbean.
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[1] UNICEF https://www.unicef.org/lac/matrimonio-infantil-y-uniones-tempranas-en-am%C3%A9rica-latina-y-el-caribe