A quarterly international newsletter on sexuality, sexual health, and sexuality education.
Volume 3, Issue 2 - Summer 2004
Marriage: A Few Key Issues Defined
In order to understand issues relating to marriage and other sexual relationships, it is important to look at a number of social and cultural practices that are common in many parts of the world. Marriage is often lauded as being of great benefit to individual adults and children as well as to society. Proponents of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, for example, believe that "traditional" marriage is the best means of preventing unintended pregnancy and STD transmission, including HIV. A number of social and cultural practices relating to marriage that are common in many parts of the world, however, violate human rights and present serious health risks, particularly to women.
Child Marriage (also referred to as "early marriage"):
The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines as children all human beings under the age of 18, unless the relevant national laws recognize an earlier age of majority (article 1).1 Based on the Convention, child marriage is the wedding of any person under the age of 18. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), marriage under the age of 18 may threaten a child's human rights, including the right to education, leisure, good health, freedom of expression, and freedom from discrimination.2 The International Convention on Population and Development Programme of Action (Cairo, 1994) instructs governments to adopt and enforce measures to end child marriages.3 According to the United Nations Population Fund, 82 million girls in developing countries who are now aged 10 to 17 will be married before their 18th birthday.4
For more information on child marriage, please see "Too Young to Wed: Child Marriage in Their Own Words" in this newsletter and please visit the following websites:
http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_earlymarriage.html
http://www.unfpa.org/intercenter/violence/gender2d.htm
http://www.icrw.org/photoessay/html/facts.htm
Domestic Violence (also referred to as "battering," "intimate partner violence,""family violence,""wife beating," and "woman abuse"):
The U.N. definition of violence against women is:"any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."5 Across the globe, women experience such violence overwhelmingly within marriage and other intimate relationships.According to the United Nations Population Fund, at least 20% of women have been abused by men they live with in every country where studies on gender violence have been conducted.6
According to the World Health Organization, "the 'private' nature of this sort of violence often makes it invisible- either literally, since it happens behind closed doors, or effectively, since legal systems and cultural norms too often treat it not as a crime, but as a family matter, or a normal part of life."7
In sub-Saharan Africa, statistics show domestic violence to be as prevalent as HIV/AIDS. Surveys reveal that 42 percent of Kenyan women, 60 percent of Tanzanian women, and 46 percent of Ugandan women report regular physical abuse.8 In a Nigerian survey, 81 percent of married women report being verbally or physically abused by their husbands.9 Domestic violence not only rivals HIV/AIDS as a health threat to women, but the two are interrelated. Especially in areas where the HIV/AIDS pandemic is at its worst and subordination of women is widespread, fear of violence deters women from accessing HIV/AIDS information, testing, counseling, and treatment. In a relationship characterized by violence, women are unable to determine when they have sex or insist on condom use. If a woman who believes she is at risk for HIV infection from her husband suggests condom use, he may feel justified in beating her either for suspecting her of infidelity or for implicitly accusing him of infidelity.10
For more information on domestic violence, please visit the following websites:
http://www.unifem.org/index.php?f_page_pid=207
http://www.hotpeachpages.net/ (information in over 70 languages)
Dowry (also referred to as "bride-price" or "lobola"):
Dowry is an agreed-upon payment that in many cultures a bride's family must make to the groom's family prior to the wedding. A dowry may be paid in cash, kind, or any other agreed form, such as a period of employment, and is often paid in combination. Failure to pay the dowry or providing a dowry deemed inadequate can lead to violence.11 Once married, women often cannot leave their husbands without repaying the dowry, even in cases of domestic violence.12
The U.N. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women recognizes dowry-related violence as one type of violence against women.The Declaration recognizes that all forms of violence against women contravene women's human rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.13
For more information on dowry and dowry-related violence, please visit the following websites:
http://www.samachar.com/people/y2k0714-shakti.html
http://mifumi.org/bp_conference/doc_list.htm
Forced Marriage: UNICEF describes forced marriages as those where the notion of consent is non-existent and the views of bride or groom are ignored, particularly when those involved are under age.14 The 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery condemns forced marriage as a slavery-like practice, prohibiting "any institution or practice whereby…a woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or kind."15 This article clarifies the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provision that marriage must be entered into only with "the free and full consent of the intending spouses."16 Across the globe today, forced marriage occurs under conditions with varying levels of coercion.
Forced marriage is often a component of armed conflict. For example, during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone, combatants' abducted women as "wives," forcing them to have sex and bear children, branding them, and threatening their lives if they tried to escape. Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone plan to charge key players in the civil war with forced marriage as a crime against humanity.17
Forced marriage is also common in areas where law and social custom allow rapists to be absolved of their crimes if they marry their victims. In Ethiopia, this social norm is being challenged by young women, their families, and dedicated advocates.Woineshet Zebene Negash was abducted and raped by the same man twice when she was 13 years old. With the assistance of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association and Equality Now, an international women's rights group,Woineshet, now 16, and her father have resisted offers by her abuser to marry her and are taking her case to Ethiopia's highest court.18
To learn more about forced marriage, please visit the following websites:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3587373.stm
http://www.frauenrechte.de/english/forced-marriage-campaign-2002.html
References
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