In Colombia, 4.5 million girls have married before 18, often disrupting education and leading to health risks and violence. This issue is tied to poverty, gender discrimination, and weak rights. Following a 17-year advocacy effort, the Colombian Senate is raising the minimum marriage age from 14 to 18. This change addresses a longstanding loophole in the Civil Code, which allowed early marriages with parental consent. Child rights organizations celebrate this milestone, emphasizing its potential to end the damaging cycle of child marriage and uphold girls’ rights and futures. Early marriage’s consequences include interrupted schooling and increased health risks.
Imagine you are 14 years old. You have just started your second year at secondary school. You dream of what to stay when you grow up, even if it’s a while until you are. Suddenly you are told by your family that you are getting married. Like adults do? What does it mean for your education? Do you have to become a mom too? This has been the case for 4.5 million girls and women in Colombia, they have had to get married before the age of 18, according to an article in The Guardian from November 2024. Child marriage is a problem closely linked to poverty, gender discrimination, tradition and weak rights for girls. It shows figures from plan. But now the Senate in Colombia has decided to raise the age of marriage from 14 to 18 years, after a 17 -year struggle from several child rights organizations. Smoothing holes in the law Since 1887, the country’s “Civil Code” has contained a loophole that has allowed 14-year-olds to marry their parents’ consent, according to The Guardian. A “Civil Code” is a law collection that regulates private law matters. Now the law will be changed, much to the delight of child rights organizations. General Secretary of Plan International Norway, Kari Helene Partapuoli explains the importance of the law change. – Child marriage is a violation of children’s basic rights, and this law gives hope to end a practice that has damaged generations. Major consequences figures from the UN show that one in five girls under 18, and one in ten under 14, is married or lives in marriage-like conditions in Colombia. The consequences of this are many and large. Children who enter into marriage have increased risk of early pregnancy, life -threatening complications during childbirth, interrupted schooling and home violence. The gender and development manager at UNICEF in Colombia, Andrea Tague Montaña, emphasizes how important the new legislative change is for children’s rights, especially for girls. – These are girls who stop studying, who lose rights by going into early marriage. It is important to encourage society to stop normalizing early marriage; It is a violation of rights, she tells the UN.
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