No region globally is on track to eliminate child marriage by 2030, according to UNICEF. Despite a decade of progress — with global rates decreasing from 21.7% to 18.7% — the practice is still double the average in countries deemed “fragile,” where violence, economic shocks, and natural disasters are already drivers of poverty. Lesser known is the alarming rate at which child marriage happens in countries like the U.K. and the U.S., where 37 states still allow minors to marry under the age of 18. Ending the practice is a specific target of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which are a call to action for all countries to address poverty and protect the planet.
What’s being done to stop a practice that kills up to 60 girls per day? Fortunately, Girls Not Brides has been working toward this goal for over a decade. Established in 2011, the organization is a coalition of 1,400 organizations across more than 100 countries dedicated to prioritizing gender rights through the end of child marriage.
Speaking with Global Citizen, Girls Not Brides reinforced the urgency of their work: “With just six years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, accelerated action is urgently needed to reach the target of ending child, early, and forced marriages and unions.”
Ending Child Marriage: A Global Effort
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed its first significant resolution on child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM), recognizing the urgent need for action to eliminate this practice. The following year, member states included the goal of ending CEFM by 2030 in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN Human Rights Council has also adopted resolutions focused on the prevention and elimination of forced marriage.
“The UNGA resolution is a critical tool in anchoring global action and establishing a normative framework to end child, early, and forced marriage,” said the organization. “It is pivotal as part of our efforts to support and sustain accelerated action.”
Ten years later, Girls Not Brides and its allies are closely monitoring the outcomes of this historic resolution and have developed a set of recommendations for future UN resolutions, such as recognizing the rights of girls in informal unions, strengthening access to justice and the law for girls, and improving funding to organizations fighting child marriage.
Global Advocates: Girls Not Brides and Their Partners
Girls Not Brides intensified its engagement with international bodies such as the United Nations and the African Union by leveraging a broad network to tackle the complex issue of child marriage through advocacy, community engagement, and strategic partnerships.
In the U.S., Girls Not Brides has ramped up its advocacy and public education efforts and launched a new campaign aimed at increasing awareness about the impact of child marriage globally and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. With the support of 60 U.S.-based organizations, like the Tahirih Justice Center and their work to support the Child Marriage Protection Act in 2024, the Girls Not Brides coalition has together, at the state and national levels, worked collectively to push for bipartisan support on legislation such as the Keeping Girls in School Act of 2019. Recently, the organization helped include child marriage in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, leading to a comprehensive U.S. strategy addressing it as a human rights violation.
Similarly, in India, a country with some of the highest numbers of child marriages in the world, Girls Not Brides local partners have launched a comprehensive girls' empowerment program with girls involved more likely to remain in school and delay marriage.
In Sierra Leone, where 30 percent of girls are married before the age of 18, the organization helped pass a historic bill, The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2024, the first of its kind in the country.
The coalition is also making significant strides in Latin America and the Caribbean when, in 2023, the first grant agreement was signed with the National Partnership in Guatemala, kickstarting the "Red Voceras," a project promoting the agency and advocacy capacities of girls and adolescents to demand the fulfillment of their rights, with a focus on early pregnancy.
Collaboration and Commitment Are the Way Forward
Fostering collaboration among governments, NGOs, and communities is essential for empowering advocacy at all levels. As Girls Not Brides proves, it is a crucial factor in the fight to uphold the rights of girls and women and end child marriage at the global level. Nevertheless, as the organization told Global Citizen, policy and social justice wins against child marriage are huge, but so is commitment to ensure this work continues and the “needs of never-married girls are met.”
“This includes addressing the rights of girls in informal unions, to education, to justice, to autonomy, and critically to comprehensive, safe, and accessible sexual and reproductive health services.”
As Global Citizens, we can continue to raise our voices and take action to ensure that the practice of child marriage is stopped in our lifetimes.