Burden of sexuality: rape, harassment and premarital sex in Child Marriage

#Breakthroughtv adopts an article from my voice on Early Marriage:

http://www.breakthrough.tv/earlymarriage/2013/09/burden-sexuality-marital-rape-abuse-harassment/

Child marriage has devastating consequences on the child, on the family and in a long run, on the society. It is a dangerous practice which people undertake in the name of religion and culture. Poverty and illiteracy is the prime reason that leads to such action. Poverty makes a parent pull out the daughter from the school and sense of lack of security for the uneducated male dominance; they are forced to marry away the child. The child girl becomes a child bride in no time.

They are denied the chance to gain skills and knowledge to help lift them and their family out of poverty. They are often married to much older men, which makes it hard for them to assert their wishes and leaves them particularly vulnerable to domestic violence. As soon as they reach puberty, its time for motherhood for them and the risk of death during child birth is very high for these mothers.

Right from the very young age, they are not provided the fundamental space to voice their opinion or address their wish or needs. This makes them the silent victim of various domestic, social, economical, physical and mental traumas for their entire life. Moreover, she is not supported by the other women in the family as it is told to her that such abuse was “normal” and a wife’s duty to bear it. Often, if the child is married to the poor family, they are sent to beg, to work in brick kilns and other small time daily wages. Here, they again undergo violence, molestation and rape which give way to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.

In a way, it is another system of bonded labor, One does not take consent if the child wants to marry the man chosen for her, just because she is married, she is exposed to abuses, threats, controlled set of work and non-consensual sexual relations

Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death in girls aged 15-19 in low- and middle-income countries. 90% of adolescent pregnancies in the developing world are to girls who are already married.

Child brides are also vulnerable to obstetric fistula, a preventable yet debilitating injury resulting from obstructed labor or prolonged childbirth.

Child brides often face pressure from their husband’s family, their own family and the wider community to have children soon after marriage. They become mothers at an early age, which makes them more likely to experience early and frequent pregnancies. 

It is very difficult to for child brides to assert their wishes with their often older husbands. It is hard for them to exercise their right to family planning and to choose when and whether to have children.

There are strong correlations between maternal mortality rates and child marriage prevalence rates. A 10 per cent reduction in child marriage could be associated with a 70 per cent reduction in a country’s maternal mortality rates.

On the whole, if a greater number of children are born from mothers between the age of 15 and 18 and 65% of these mothers die during childbirth, it is obvious that the new born will undergo a mal nutritious upbringing finally resulting in a severe disruption in the ecology and man woman ratio.