Harriet Chanza of the World Health Organization said that in many cases some parents may actually want their daughters to get pregnant at a young age.
A girl is often married soon after she is found to be pregnant, deferring the cost of caring for her and her baby from her parents to her husband.
But a child marriage is seriously dangerous for young girls.
- One third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18
- One in nine are married before the age of 15.
- If present trends continue, 142 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday over the next decade. That’s an average of 14.2 million girls each year
- Girls living in poor households are almost twice as likely to marry before 18 than girls in higher income households.
· Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s.
· Pregnancy is the leading cause of death worldwide for girls ages 15 to 19.
· Child brides face a higher risk of contracting HIV because they often marry an older man with more sexual experience.
· Girls aged between 15 and19 are two to six times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: International Centre for Research on Women
