“The #NotBefore18 campaign is a collective campaign that aims to raise awareness of the danger of marrying off girl children and to call for a law that criminalizes and prevents the marriage of minors. Several women’s rights-focused civil society organizations and institutions take part in this campaign, namely:
Salama Foundation
Hawaa Al-Mostakbal Association for Family and Environment Development
Jozour Foundation
Al-Sa’eed Association for Education and Development
The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights
Arab and African Women’s Development Foundation
The Egyptian Association for Comprehensive Development
Women and Society Association
CARE International Egypt
New Woman Foundation
Profession and Future Foundation
Egyptian Women Lawyers’ Initiative Foundation
Egyptian Leadership Foundation for Development
Al-Mashreq Development Foundation
Wala Website and other faces
Appropriate Communication Techniques for Development (ACT)
Women for Development Foundation
The Egyptian Medical Women’s Association
Egyptians Beyond Borders for Development Foundation
Aswan International Women’s Film Festival
Art and Development Foundation
Before 18, she needs the love and care of her family.
Before 18, she should be going to school, playing, and having fun.
The term “”child wife”” reflects vulnerability and the danger of pregnancy-related, potentially fatal high blood pressure.
Marrying off a child deprives her of family affection and of living through childhood, making her more prone to psychological disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and hysteria.
The term “”child wife”” exposes her psychological state to instability from being deprived of the maternal and paternal affection she desperately needs at this age.
The term “”child wife”” exposes her to physical, psychological, and social danger.
The three most important events in anyone’s life are birth, marriage, and death, and marriage is the only one we can control; for a girl to marry, she must first live her childhood and go through adolescence until she turns 18, so she has the capacity and maturity to choose.
The term “”child wife”” puts both her life and her child’s life at risk of death.
Adolescent girls face greater risk during childbirth because their bodies, especially height and pelvic size, are not yet fully developed.
Any girl who is 18 minus one day has not yet reached full physical maturity, and pregnancy at this stage can lead to serious complications, even death.
Pregnancy before age 18 can cause respiratory problems and delayed physical and mental development in the fetus.
Early marriage is a blatant violation of a child’s right to affection, safety, and protection, and opens the door to the worst forms of violence, exploitation, and trafficking.
Studies show that marrying off girl children increases their risk of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV.
The rate of C-sections is high among mothers under 18, and repeated operations cause uterine-wall problems that endanger the lives of both mother and newborn.
Most studies on early marriage point to sexual relationship disturbances between spouses, resulting from the child’s lack of understanding of the nature of the relationship.
The child faces major physical and psychological health risks from early marriage that affect her future.
Childbirth is one of the leading causes of death among girls aged 15 to 19, yet a girl under 18 is married off somewhere in the world every two seconds.
A close look at successful versus failed marriages in general shows that early marriage fails in most cases and creates social crises with enormous costs; the minimum marriage age should therefore be raised above 18, so a girl is equipped to bear the burdens and pressures of life — a position that does not conflict with any Quranic text.
Early marriage is a crime against the innocence of childhood.
A girl must obtain an education and secure her own future so she can face life, alongside her right to live her childhood.
Marriage under 18 is an unconscious, immature marriage.
Core campaign slogans against the marriage of minors:
For a law that bans the marriage of girl children.
Stop the marriage of minors.
Women and men, hand in hand, to stop the crime of marrying minors.
Stop the trafficking of girls.
Protecting minors from trafficking is both a right and a duty.
If women were protected from early marriage and from all forms of discrimination and violence against them, this would bring about radical change, making the world safer, fairer, and more harmonious.
The marriage of minors, or child marriage, meaning the marriage of anyone who has not completed eighteen years of age, is considered an underage marriage lacking full legal capacity. A girl is only considered free and fully recognized once she reaches this age; marrying off anyone younger is considered a crime against humanity.
This dangerous phenomenon results in health consequences and risks to the life of both the child and the fetus, a higher likelihood of birth defects and unsafe abortions, and a deterioration in the child’s psychological and physical health. It also carries negative effects for the family and society, along with economic and human costs that limit development opportunities.
Child marriage, or forced marriage, is a form of gender-based discrimination that significantly affects women and girls. The main factors still fueling the marriage of girls under 18 are cultural, social, political, and legal.
There are many reasons parents choose early marriage for their children, and despite it being impermissible, it remains widespread in some communities and countries. Among the most important of these reasons:
Entrenching the stereotypical role of women, in which a woman’s main function is seen as building a family and raising children, often without the girl having any say in the decision.
The family’s poor economic situation, which may lead them to see marriage as a transaction that guarantees success by society’s standards, since families are sometimes offered financial incentives by the groom’s side; some view this as justification for early marriage, limiting marriage to young girls and treating it as an achievement with better prospects. Traditional mindsets also set rigid standards for girls, heightening parents’ fear and desire to marry off their daughters early to avoid them marrying “”late,”” based on prevailing social attitudes or for religious or traditional reasons. Concepts such as modesty, spinsterhood, and honor are attached to the girl, making marriage the protective framework for family honor and a guarantee against any moral deviation that could harm the family’s reputation and social standing.
Early marriage usually ends a child’s schooling and confines her to the home to prepare her to be a homemaker, limiting girls’ access to education and to the skills needed for decent work; early marriage becomes a barrier to development, potentially excluding an entire category of people from contributing to building society, and undermining individuals’ economic independence, leaving a person unable to make decisions while in a position of dependency. It also exposes girls to abuse and a sense of inferiority, generating feelings of inadequacy and a negative self-image, and in many cases exposes them to various forms of exploitation, whether economic or sexual. A girl may also face violence and be less able to confront it, due to limited awareness and a limited right to participate in decisions concerning her own family; her role becomes confined to reproduction, and she may be unable to make decisions about her children, her family, or their future.
The girl is placed in a subordinate position, unable to make decisions, and family problems arise from her lack of maturity and awareness, or from a wide age gap between spouses.
Early marriage affects family relationships in the future, as the likelihood of anxiety and psychological problems increases.
The right to mental health is among the most important factors behind the psychological problems and disorders a girl faces, because marriage at a young age is essentially a form of compulsion; the first thing she is deprived of is living her natural age alongside her peers, receiving a proper education, playing, laughing, and having fun, without carrying responsibilities beyond her years, such as running a household and being a wife. Her condition may even progress to depression and resentment toward the society she lives in.
The marriage is likely never to be registered in civil records, creating legal problems from marrying at a young age and exposing the girl, her family, and her husband to legal complications.
Therefore, the marriage of minors is:
Stealing girls’ dreams and depriving them of their right to childhood and adolescence.
Depriving girls of education and work.
Leaving girls in ignorance and poor health.
Statistics and figures:
A survey on the economic cost of gender-based violence found that:
More than a quarter of Egyptian women aged 18-64, or 27%, were married before turning 18, and poorer women are more likely to marry early than other women; the share of women who married early drops from 26% among the poorest women to 15% among the wealthiest.
The 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey also found that about 24% of women aged 25-49 were married before turning 18.
The National Strategy for Combating Early Child Marriage stated that:
Early marriage in Egypt accounts for about 15% of all marriages, rising in the poorest governorates, where the share of girls married between ages 15-19 reaches 13%. The rate of early marriage rises to 30.5% when the husband works in agriculture, compared with only 6.7% [in other cases].
Divorce rates in early marriages also rise to about 20%, compared with 11% among women who married later in life.
Egyptian law:
Article 31 of the Egyptian Child Law states:
“”A marriage contract may not be officially documented for either party who has not completed eighteen full Gregorian years of age. Documentation requires a medical examination for those wishing to marry, to confirm they are free of diseases that could affect the life or health of either party or the health of their offspring. Anyone who documents a marriage in violation of this article is subject to disciplinary punishment.””
This article does not ban marriage for those under 18; it only bans the official documentation of the marriage. Child marriage is therefore usually carried out through an agreement between the girl’s guardian and the groom or his representative, announced religiously and socially, with a marriage registrar, lawyer, or someone else drawing up an informal (“”urfi””) contract that cannot legally be registered in state records. This creates numerous legal problems, especially for the wife and children, most notably:
Inability to obtain birth certificates for the children, and loss of their right to have their lineage correctly registered to their real father and mother.
Loss of the wife’s civil and social rights.
Trafficking of girls:
Some cases of child marriage amount to a form of sexual exploitation and human trafficking, where children are married off and exploited for sexual purposes in exchange for food or money to support the family; typically the child’s guardian hands her over to someone for a sexual relationship for a set period in exchange for payment.
This type of marriage constitutes a crime under Egypt’s Anti-Human Trafficking Law No. 64 of 2010, whose Article 2 states:
Anyone who deals in any way with a natural person — including selling, offering for sale, buying, promising any of these, or using, transporting, delivering, harboring, receiving, or accepting them, whether within the country or across its borders — through force, violence or the threat of either, concealment, fraud, deception, abuse of power, exploitation of a state of weakness or need, or by promising or receiving money or benefits in exchange for a person’s consent to traffic another person under their control, is considered to have committed the crime of human trafficking, provided this is done for the purpose of sexual exploitation in any form, including exploitation in prostitution, the exploitation of children including in pornographic material, forced labor or servitude, enslavement or practices similar to slavery, servitude, begging, or the removal of human organs or tissue, in whole or in part.
A fatwa issued by Egypt’s Dar Al-Ifta in January 2010 concludes:
That this type of marriage contract is invalid, since it lacks the real conditions and pillars of a valid marriage — no one would subject his daughter to such a path except an openly immoral person devoid of fairness — making it a marriage without a legally recognized guardian, and therefore void. The fatwa also leans toward considering such cases a form of sexual exploitation, for which the perpetrator, the parents, the intermediary, and anyone who facilitated or pursued its completion in this manner — which is not approved by God, His Messenger (peace be upon him), or believers — should be punished.
What needs to be done? How do we ban child marriage?
Policies and mechanisms:
A law must be enacted that bans and criminalizes child marriage.
Children must be enabled to access and benefit from all educational, developmental, economic, social, legal, and health resources, with adequate protective measures provided to help them build self-respect and access justice.
To this end, the marriage of minors must be criminalized through the necessary legislation and policies, and the minimum age of marriage must be raised to 18, for both child marriage and forced marriage.
However, legislative and procedural reforms alone, however important, cannot put an end to this on their own. Comprehensive action plans must be developed and implemented in a participatory manner, covering every form of forced marriage, and guided by the principle of the best interests of the child.
By “”participatory,”” we mean that state institutions and civil society organizations — including women, children, and community leaders — should take part in designing these plans, alongside raising awareness of the issue and spreading a culture of change, generating broad social impact, public dialogue, and mobilization.
This would help curb child marriage and raise awareness of its dangers.
These plans should fundamentally focus on supporting and spreading awareness, expanding girls’ opportunities in education and employment, and supporting their independence and their awareness of the risks of early and forced marriage.
Enact a law that bans all forms of domestic violence against women and girls.
Establish mandatory centers to prepare those wishing to marry and to raise awareness of their rights and duties.
Develop free health programs and services, spread health education, and allocate sufficient budgets for this.
Develop educational curricula that entrench full and genuine equality between girls and boys, and between women and men.
Take appropriate measures to ensure that all children complete primary and secondary education up to age 18, with particular focus on girls.
Support young girls and child brides in completing their education, and find appropriate ways to reintegrate them into education and develop their life skills.”
