Delay Marriage Promote Schooling for Ugandan Girls

40% of girls in Uganda are married before their 18th birthday and one in 10 is married before the age of 15.

According to UNICEF, Uganda has the 16th highest prevalence rate of child marriage in the world and the tenth highest absolute number of child brides globally – 787,000.

Customary marriages or informal marriages, where a girl lives with an older man, are more commonly registered civil or religious marriages.

11% of currently married 15-19 year old girls are married to men who have more than one wife.

A 2017 World Bank study shows that ending child marriage in Uganda could generate USD514 million in earnings and productivity.

Amid the covid-19 induced lockdown, many young girls have been married off, poverty is one of the key drivers of child marriages in Uganda because parents want money and bride price. The magnitude of child marriage consequences is equally sad most especially to girls. From sexually transmitted diseases, leaving school early and psychological trauma, the future of teenage girls remains at crossroads.

Another terrible consequence of child marriage is teenage pregnancies.

The Population Secretariat indicates that of the 1.2 million pregnancies recorded in Uganda annually, 25 per cent of these are teenage pregnancies.

This means that more than 300,000 teenagers who get pregnant also account for the bulk of unwanted pregnancies, which end up in unintended births or abortion. A lot needs to be done. We need to move beyond legislation and ensure that laws around early marriages are implemented. We need to also adopt a community based approach where we raise awareness in communities about dangers of child marriage.

We recognize the importance of working directly with the target groups as they are the ones who know best what their needs are and what works and what does not work for their communities. Joy for Children Uganda, with support from Girls not Brides Global and the Uganda alliance are working on accelerating the progress to end child marriage; the main goal is to accelerate reduction in Child marriage. Key strategies to achieve the goal include; empowerment of the girl child as an individual; increasing access to information and services for the girl child; creating a favorable and protective social and legal environment for the girl child. This will eventually help in realization of equality and equity among all sexes.