Child Marriage is Still a Persistent Problem in Canada
By: Jasmine Shafquat
1. Child Marriage Worldwide
By way of background, child marriage is defined as “any marriage where at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age.”[1] A forced marriage are marriages in which “one and/or both parties have not personally expressed their full and free consent.”[2] Importantly, a child marriage is considered to be a “form of forced marriage, given that one and/or both parties have not expressed full, free and informed consent.”[3] Moreover, child marriage is “globally-recognized indicator of gender inequality.”[4] This is because the negative consequences associated with child marriage tends to disproportionately affect girls.[5] First, young girls are far more likely to be married as children than young boys.[6] Additionally, young girls who are married prior to the age of eighteen are “more likely to be out of school, suffer domestic violence, contract HIV/AIDS and die due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth.”[7] As a result, child marriage is widely considered “a violation of child protection and human rights.”[8] It is also important to note that high rates of child marriages can even hurt a country’s economy by exasperating intergenerational cycles of poverty.[9] For those reasons and more, there has been a global effort by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to end child marriage by 2030.[10]
Notably, most of the research on child marriages focuses on developing countries, which means that the persistence of this practice in wealthier countries is vastly understudied.[11] A recent study from McGill University, however, has revealed that thousands of marriage certificates have been issued to children under the age of eighteen in Canada.[12] This study is one of the first to “shed light” on the prevalence of child marriage in a developed country.[13] Moreover, given that “Canada has placed itself at the forefront of global efforts to end child marriage as part of its commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” this study has further revealed that Canada (and presumably other developed nations) must prioritize eradicating child marriage not only through international efforts, but through domestic changes as well.[14]
2. Current Canadian Law and McGill University Findings
In Canada, the federal government “define[s] marriage by setting out rules and restrictions on who can marry,” whereas the provinces and territories “determine the requirements for the solemnization of marriage.” Canadian federal law currently allows children to marry at the age of sixteen with parental consent or a court order.[15] Correspondingly, the McGill University study has shown that more than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to children under the age of eighteen between 2000 and 2018.[16] Importantly, approximately eighty-five percent of these marriage certificates were issued to young girls that married “much older” spouses.[17] The study further noted that “’[t]his gendered patterning is consistent with child marriage practices observed across the globe.” Additionally, the study revealed that child marriage through common law unions have become extraordinarily more common in Canada.[18] For example, “[i]n 2006, formal marriage accounted for more than half of all child unions. By 2016, formal marriage accounted for only 5 [five] percent and common-law unions were twenty times as prevalent.”[19] The authors of the McGill study believe that the rise in common-law unions among children is, at least in part, a result of the “growing social disapproval of child marriage.”[20] What is more, these common law child unions are arguably worse than the formal marriages because these unions have less social, legal, and economic protections.[21] Consequently, addressing how to discourage child marriage both formally through the issuing of marriage certificates and informally through common law marriage poses an especially unique challenge for Canadian law makers.[22]
3. Conclusion
In sum, the McGill University study has shown that child marriage is still a persistent problem in both developed and undeveloped nations. Because there is a limited number of studies on child marriages in developed nations, more research is certainly needed to help understand the underlying causes, motivations, and consequences of these unions. Nonetheless, in the meantime, the Canada and similarly situated countries should continue to support both a domestic and international agenda to end child marriage, with an understanding that innovative and different approaches are needed to achieve this goal.
#Canada #ChildMarriage #Shafquat #International #Law #BlogPost
[1]Child, early and forced marriage, including in humanitarian settings, United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/women/wrgs/pages/childmarriage.aspx#:~:text=Child%2C%20early%20and%20forced%20marriage%2C%20including%20in%20humanitarian%20settings,-HTMLCountry3&text=Child%2C%20early%20and%20forced%20marriage%20(CEFM)%20is%20a%20human,from%20all%20forms%20of%20violence (last visited Feb. 7. 2021).
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Child marriage is legal and persists across Canada, Eureka Alert (Jan. 8, 2021) https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/mu-cmi010821.php
[5] Id; see also Brooklyn Neustaeter, Child marriage persists across Canada, rural communities, study finds, CTV News (Jan. 10, 2021) https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/child-marriage-persists-across-canada-rural-communities-study-finds-1.5261016.
[6] Brooklyn Neustaeter, supra note 5.
[7] New UN initiative aims to protect millions of girls from child marriage, United Nations (Mar. 2016) https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2016/03/new-un-initiative-aims-to-protect-millions-of-girls-from-child-marriage/
[8] Child marriage: Facts, FAQs, and how to help end it, World Vision (July 15, 2018) https://www.worldvision.org/child-protection-news-stories/child-marriage-facts.
[9] New UN initiative aims to protect millions of girls from child marriage, supra note 7.
[10] Id.
[11] Brooklyn Neustaeter, supra note 5.
[12] Id.
[13] Child marriage is legal and persists across Canada, supra note 4.
[14] Matthew Lavietes, Thousands of child marriages in Canada spark concern over global leadership (Jan 11, 2021) https://www.reuters.com/article/canada-childmarriage-trfn/thousands-of-child-marriages-in-canada-spark-concern-over-global-leadership-idUSKBN29G2PV.
[15] Alissa Koski & Shelley Clark, Child Marriage in Canada, Population & Dev. Rev. (Jan 8, 2021) https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12369.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Child marriage is legal and persists across Canada, supra note 4.
[20] Id.
[21] Brooklyn Neustaeter, supra note 5.
[22] Id.