Why efforts to protect children from early marriage have faltered in the Middle East

Child marriage in the Arab world denies girls the chance to pursue education or employment and strips them of power. (UNICEF/file photo)
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Updated 23 March 2025
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Why efforts to protect children from early marriage have faltered in the Middle East

  • Conflicts, disasters, and rising conservatism have rolled back women’s rights, says Oxfam’s Hadeel Qazzaz
  • Despite laws setting 18 as the minimum marriage age in many Arab countries, legal loopholes undermine progress

LONDON: In a bid to protect the rights of children, Kuwait recently raised the minimum age of marriage to 18. However, the fight against child marriage across the Arab world remains an uphill battle, particularly in conflict-ridden regions.

In mid-February, Kuwait amended its Personal Status Law No. 51/1984 and Jaafari Personal Status Law No. 124/2019, citing alarming rates of child marriage. In 2024 alone, 1,145 underage marriages were registered, including 1,079 girls and 66 boys.




Lebanese women participate in a march against marriage before the age of 18, in Beirut on March 2, 2019. (AFP/file)

The move aligns with the Gulf state’s international commitments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Under the principles of both conventions and other international treaties, child marriage is widely recognized as a harmful practice, and a violation of human rights that only deepens gender inequality, particularly as it affects girls more than boys.

“Child marriage is a human rights violation,” Hadeel Qazzaz, Oxfam’s Middle East North Africa regional gender coordinator, told Arab News. “It impacts the life of the child.”




Hadeel Qazzaz, Oxfam’s gender coordinator for MENA region. (Supplied)

She explained that child marriage denies girls the chance to pursue education or employment, strips them of decision-making power, and denies them both bodily autonomy and reproductive choice.

“It does not only impact the child’s life but also the life of her family and her future children,” said Qazzaz. “Girl brides are more likely to be subjected to different forms of gender-based violence and to be less engaged at the family, community, or society levels.”

According to New York-based monitor Human Rights Watch, research shows that underage brides are at a higher risk of experiencing domestic violence, marital rape, and restricted access to reproductive healthcare and education.




Child brides," or "death brides" as they are sometimes called, are quite common in poor tribal Yemen, where barely pubescent girls are forced into marriage, often to much older men. (AFP file photo)

UN agencies say a staggering 70 percent of married girls aged 15 to 19 experience physical or other forms of violence at the hands of their husbands.

Compounding the issue, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries. Girls aged 15 to 20 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as those in their 20s, while girls under 15 face a fivefold risk.

Pregnancy and domestic responsibilities often prevent girls from ever returning to education, Human Rights Watch warned. This lack of education limits their choices and opportunities throughout their lives, often leading to poverty.





Girls who marry young face many adverse effects that negatively impact their health and well-being, says the UNFPA. (AFP file photo)

The impact of child marriage extends beyond the individuals themselves, affecting the region’s economy as well.

A 2020 study by the International Monetary Fund found that eliminating child marriage could boost annual per capita gross domestic product growth in emerging and developing countries by 1.05 percentage points in the long term.

Nevertheless, child marriage remains a scourge across the Middle East and North Africa, hitting war zones and post-conflict societies the hardest.

The MENA region is home to 40 million child brides, with one in five marrying before the age of 18 and one in 25 before 15, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF. In recent years, girls have been married off at a rate of around 700,000 per year.

“These are alarming figures that can increase with fragility, conflicts, and natural disasters,” said Oxfam’s Qazzaz.

The five countries with the highest child marriage rates in the region are Yemen at 30 percent, Iraq at 28 percent, Iran at 17 percent, Egypt at 16 percent, and Morocco at 14 percent.

According to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the lack of legal protections, the impact of societal norms, poverty, and deep-rooted gender inequality are the key drivers of child marriage in the Arab world.

Many countries in the region have set the minimum age of marriage at 18, with some allowing exceptions based on judicial or parental consent. But even where minimum-age laws exist, exceptions often undermine their effectiveness.

In Iraq, for example, the problem is expected to worsen after authorities passed amendments to the personal status law in January, which indirectly legalize the marriage of girls as young as 9, sparking condemnation both domestically and abroad.




A girl joins a protest rally over a proposed amendment to the Iraqi Personal Status Law, which activists said would abet efemale child marriages. (AFP)

Although Iraqi law sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage, the amendments give Islamic courts greater authority to decide. Clerics could interpret Islamic law to allow such marriages under the Jaafari school followed by many religious authorities in Iraq.

Equality Now, a global feminist advocacy organization, warned that the amendments risk exacerbating existing gaps in Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law.

The group said the shift would create a fragmented legal system, with protections for children and women varying significantly across communities.

According to UNICEF, child marriage rates in Iraq vary widely by region, with Missan (43.5 percent), Najaf (37.2 percent), and Karbala (36.8 percent) reporting the highest rates.




Activists demonstrate against female child marriages in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad on July 28, 2024, amid parliamentary discussion over a proposed amendment to the Iraqi Personal Status Law. (AFP)

“Fragmentation of laws creates loopholes that undermine the welfare of the most vulnerable, particularly girls, and weakens the state’s ability to uphold international human rights commitments,” Dima Dabbous, Equality Now’s MENA representative, said in a statement.

Conflict and displacement across parts of the MENA region, including Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, and the Palestinian territories, worsen inequalities that make girls vulnerable to child marriage and its consequences.

Oxfam’s Qazzaz pointed out that conflict is “one of the main reasons” for the rising rates across MENA countries. “In the Gaza Strip, where child marriage was less common, there is now a noticeable increase in the number of marriages,” she said.




In the Gaza Strip, where child marriage was less common, there is now a noticeable increase in the number of marriages, says Oxfam. (AFP photo/file)

“The reasons vary from fear for the safety of the girl to scarcity of resources that force families to marry their daughters to others who can provide for them.”

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, Gaza has been under intense Israeli bombardment and a strict blockade of humanitarian aid and consumer goods.

After 16 months of war, Gaza’s population — 90 percent of whom have been displaced — are now fully reliant on what limited aid can get through.




A woman feeds her child amid the rubble of destroyed buildings at a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians in the Nahr al-Bared area in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on December 9, 2024. (AFP)

While the January ceasefire has improved conditions in the embattled enclave, Israel’s recent decision to again suspend the entry of assistance threatens to reverse progress, aid agencies warn.

The situation for girls is similarly dire in Yemen — a hotspot for child marriage, where there is no legal minimum marriage age. The ongoing civil war, which began in 2014, has stalled efforts to establish one.




Yemeni child brides, eight year-old Nojud Ali (L) and nine year-old Arwa (R), pose for a picture as they celebrate their divorces, granted them by a Yemeni court, with a party in the capital Saana on July 30, 2008. (AFP)/file)

ccording to UN figures, the war has displaced more than 4.5 million people, and 21.6 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The economic strain of displacement and conflict, coupled with pre-existing cultural norms favoring early marriage, has significantly increased underage marriages.

“In the MENA region, it’s not just conflicts that impact child marriage — economic and natural disasters, as well as the rise in conservatism and the regression of women’s rights, also play a role,” Qazzaz said.

Owing to the rise in conservatism and geopolitical tensions, “the achievements women’s rights organizations have gained through years of activism are at risk of being reversed,” she added.

Sudan, for instance, already saw high rates of child marriage and female genital mutilation even before the civil war erupted in April 2023.

Despite efforts to curb these harmful practices, 21 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 were already married before the war began, according to UNICEF.

The ongoing hostilities, mass displacement, worsening economic conditions, and declining education threaten to deepen the crisis facing women and girls.




Eight-year old Sudanese girl Ashjan Yousef, who was wed at the age of five to a man in his 40s, was granted divorce by the national court in Khartoum on October 13, 2014. (AFP/file)

Since fighting erupted between rival factions of Sudan’s military government, more than 12.5 million people have been displaced, either within the country or to neighboring countries including Egypt and Ethiopia.

Similarly, in Syria, 13 percent of women aged 20 to 25 were married as minors before the 2011 conflict broke out, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council.

However, more than a decade of war and displacement has significantly increased the rate of child marriage. Today, an estimated 41 percent of Syrian girls are married before the age of 18.

“Traditions, honor, economics, fear, and protection-related factors act as drivers of child marriage of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon,” said Qazzaz.

Around 6.2 million Syrian refugees live in neighboring countries, including Turkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, where most endure harsh living conditions, leading to a rise in child marriage as a coping mechanism.

In Jordan’s Zaatari camp, home to 80,000 Syrian refugees, girls as young as 13 are reportedly married to much older men. In Lebanon, 18 percent of adolescent Syrian refugee girls were married in 2014, according to UN figures.

National governments and international aid agencies are nonetheless working to improve the circumstances of women and girls and to protect them from early marriage. Oxfam, for instance, is a global partner of the Girls Not Brides campaign.




Child marriage in the Arab world denies girls the chance to pursue education or employment and strips them of power. (UNICEF/file photo)

“Most of our feminist and women rights partners work on child marriage as a major form of gender-based violence and seek to raise the age of marriage to 18,” Qazzaz said. “They document and challenge social and legal practices that allow for child marriage.”

Oxfam’s efforts in Yemen, in particular, have led to significant progress in raising awareness and influencing policy.

Through Oxfam’s work on sexual and reproductive health and rights, Qazzaz added: “We built youth networks in six countries to advocate for their rights and lead awareness campaigns, including the right to choose when and whom to marry.”
 

 


While the world watches Gaza, here is what’s happening in the West Bank

Updated 25 April 2025
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While the world watches Gaza, here is what’s happening in the West Bank

  • With the world’s attention focused on Gaza, Israeli military operations in the West Bank grew in size, frequency and intensity
  • The army launched the stepped-up campaign to counter what it says is a growing militant threat

With the world’s attention focused on Gaza, Israeli military operations in the West Bank grew in size, frequency and intensity. The army launched the stepped-up campaign to counter what it says is a growing militant threat.
Here’s a look at where things stand, with data collected by the UN’s humanitarian office and Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement tracking group.
Palestinian deaths by Israeli fire have surged
Since the war in Gaza erupted, the majority of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank have been shot during military raids in villages and towns.
Israel says the operations are needed to stamp out militancy. Many of the dead were militants killed in clashes, or youths throwing stones or firebombs.
But Palestinians and rights groups say scores of uninvolved civilians have been caught in the crossfire. 
Israeli offensives evicted 40,000 from refugee camps
Israel is staging a massive offensive across four major refugee camps in the north of the West Bank. The raids, at their height, pushed 40,000 people from their homes. Many are now sheltering with relatives in neighboring villages, others racking up debt renting apartments while they wait to return.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, have said those displaced will not be allowed to go back for at least a year.
Forces have ripped up roads, destroyed infrastructure and demolished hundreds of homes. Israel says it is dismantling terrorist infrastructure. But civilian homes have also been destroyed.
In another escalation, the military has resumed previously rare tactics, like drone strikes, in these densely populated areas.
Settler attacks on Palestinians occur almost daily.

For Palestinians living in small Bedouin villages in areas under full Israeli control, the attacks have become a near-daily occurrence as settlers — emboldened by Israel’s pro-settler government— build new unauthorized outposts on nearby hilltops.
Israel says it opposes settler violence and blames it all on a small, extremist fringe. Palestinians say that the Israeli army does little to protect them, and that the attacks are part of a systematic attempt to expel them from their land.
Israeli outposts spring up across territory
Settlers have established about 80 new outposts since the war began. Rights groups say the outposts, often populated by extremist activists, are the main drivers of violence against Palestinians. The tiny unauthorized land grabs are tolerated and even encouraged by Israel, which over the years has converted many outposts into authorized settlements as it cements its hold on the territory and moves to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Israel’s government, dominated by settler leaders and supporters, has established 13 new settlements since the war began, at least five of which originally sprung up as outposts. That brings the total number of settlements to 140.
Most of the international community considers settlements illegal, though US President Donald Trump has supported them.
Checkpoints choke Palestinian movement
Meanwhile, movement between Palestinian towns and cities has only grown more difficult. New checkpoints have further divided the territory and created choke points the Israeli army can shut off on a whim.
Crossings that had been open 24/7 started closing during morning and evening rush hours, disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and turning once-routine commutes into hours-long journeys.
As the war in Gaza continues and the West Bank seethes, Palestinians say life is only growing more difficult.


Sudan war destroys world’s only research center on skin disease mycetoma: director

Updated 25 April 2025
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Sudan war destroys world’s only research center on skin disease mycetoma: director

  • Mycetoma is a neglected tropical disease common among farmers
  • It is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts

CAIRO: The world’s only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan’s two-year war, its director and another expert say.
Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.
It is often characterised by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands.
“The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan,” Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Center (MRC), told AFP.
“We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years,” said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.
“It’s difficult to bear.”
Since April 15, 2023, Sudan’s army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.
The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.
Sudan’s health care system has been left at the “breaking point,” according to the World Health Organization.
Among the conflict’s casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.
A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.
AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC’s current condition.
The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.
Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.
The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan’s neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.
For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.
Drawing on the MRC’s expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan’s government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.
“Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards,” said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi’s head of mycetoma.


Sudan displacement camp ‘nearly emptied’ after RSF takeover: UN

Updated 25 April 2025
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Sudan displacement camp ‘nearly emptied’ after RSF takeover: UN

  • The agency reported hundreds of thousands of people fleeing famine-hit Zamzam arriving in nearby areas, including El-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur state that remains under army control

CAIRO: Western Sudan’s Zamzam displacement camp has been “nearly emptied” of its inhabitants, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA warned Thursday, less than two weeks after it was taken by paramilitary forces locked in a two-year war against the army.
The agency reported hundreds of thousands of people fleeing famine-hit Zamzam arriving in nearby areas, including El-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur state that remains under army control.
“Zamzam IDP (internally displaced persons) camp, which housed at least 400,000 people prior to the exodus, has been nearly emptied,” OCHA said in a statement, adding satellite images showed widespread fires there, with paramilitary forces reportedly preventing some from leaving.
“The displacement from Zamzam is now spreading to multiple locations... About 150,000 displaced people have arrived in Al Fasher locality and another 181,000 people moved to Tawila.”
The war in Sudan erupted on April 15, 2023 between the regular army, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
It has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered what aid agencies describe as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
Famine was first declared in Zamzam in August and has since spread to two more displacement camps near El-Fasher.
The RSF holds sway over much of western and southern Sudan while the army has consolidated its grip on the east and north.
After the army recaptured the capital Khartoum in March, the paramilitaries have intensified their offensives in the vast Darfur region, which is almost entirely under their control.


Tunisia burns sub-Saharan African migrant tents in latest clearance effort

Updated 24 April 2025
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Tunisia burns sub-Saharan African migrant tents in latest clearance effort

  • Many migrants arrived in Tunisia after crossing the deserts of Algeria and Mali, hoping to reach Italy
  • For nearly two years, El Amra town served as informal camps for thousands of the migrants

EL AMRA: Tunisian authorities on Thursday set fire to tents housing sub-Saharan African migrants, an AFP correspondent said, in a new drive to clear their informal camps.
Many migrants arrived in Tunisia after crossing the deserts of Algeria and Mali, hoping to reach Italy. But tighter controls on the sea route have left them stranded.
For nearly two years, olive groves around El Amra, a town near the city of Sfax, served as informal camps for thousands of the migrants but on April 4 authorities began dismantling the camps.
Around 3,300 more migrants had to leave the olive groves on Thursday, said Houcem Eddine Jebabli, spokesman for the National Guard, which said around 4,000 had left in the earlier operation.
“It’s the strategy of the State that Tunisia not be a place of settlement or transit for illegal migrants. Tunisia is coordinating with the countries of departure, of welcome as well as the international NGOs to ensure voluntary repatriation,” Jebabli told reporters.
The makeshift shelters located a few kilometers from Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast have grown as a source of tension. Local residents complain about the camps and demand that the land be cleared.
Last year, Tunisia signed a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with the European Union, nearly half of which is earmarked for tackling irregular migration.
Tunisian President Kais Saied on March 25 called on the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.
Among those told to leave the camps on Thursday was a Guinean, known as Mac, who has been in Tunisia for two years.
“It’s very hard here,” he said.
Like many migrants, he has registered with IOM to return to his homeland.
The IOM said Thursday it had facilitated the voluntary return of more than 2,300 migrants from Tunisia, after nearly 7,000 throughout 2024, which was well above the combined total for 2023 and 2022.


Lebanon media says 8 wounded in drone strike at Syrian border

Updated 25 April 2025
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Lebanon media says 8 wounded in drone strike at Syrian border

  • Eight Syrian refugees were wounded and taken to hospital in the northeast area of Hermel
  • The Lebanese army sent reinforcements “after gunfire was heard,” the report added

BEIRUT: Lebanese official media said eight people were wounded by in a drone attack in a border village, as Syrian Arab Republic said it responded to artillery fire from Lebanon.
Eight Syrian refugees were wounded and taken to hospital in the northeast area of Hermel after an “explosives-laden drone blew up” in the border village of Hawsh Al-Sayyed Ali, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
The Lebanese army sent reinforcements “after gunfire was heard,” the report added.
Syrian state news agency SANA, carrying a statement from an unnamed defense ministry source, said Lebanon’s Hezbollah group had launched artillery shells at Syrian army positions in the Qusayr area of Homs province, near the Lebanese border.
“Our forces immediately targeted the sources of the fire,” the statement said.
“We are in contact with the Lebanese army to evaluate the incident and stopped targeting the sources of fire” at the Lebanese army’s request, the statement added.
Lebanon and Syria’s defense ministers signed an agreement last month to address border security threats after clashes left 10 dead.
Earlier in March, Syria’s new authorities accused Hezbollah of abducting three soldiers into Lebanese territory and killing them.
The Iran-backed group, which fought with the forces of toppled Syrian president Bashar Assad, denied involvement, but the ensuing cross-border clashes left seven Lebanese dead.
Lebanon and Syria share a porous 330 kilometer (205 mile) frontier that is notorious for the smuggling of goods, people and weapons.