Ethiopia, art against early marriage

This photo taken by Stephanie Sinclair in Afghanistan was named 2007 Photo of the Year by UNICEF.

The standard age for getting married for many African and Asian women is puberty or, in some Sub-Saharan African and Southern Asian countries, even before that time. Things aren’t much better in certain areas of Latin America and Eastern Europe, where marriages of female adolescents between sixteen and eighteen are very common. These practices are usually referred to as “early marriages”. In some cases they’re the result of abductions, in other cases they’re a reward for war soldiers, a way for parents to protect their daughters or just a family strategy for economical survival. For sure, they are a true threat to women’s rights.

First, they are planned by someone else, thus ignoring the child’s right to choose. Second, a woman who gets married so early runs the risk of facing a pregnancy when she’s still too young for that: it’s not a case if in developing countries at least 20 percent of women give birth before age 18 and more than half a million die every year from pregnancy-related causes. Third, in early marriages women usually get married to men who are much older than they are, thus reducing their chances of having an active position in taking decisions about the family and the use of contraceptives. There are also further issues regarding young wives’ health.

Friday 7th and Saturday 8th, in occasion of the International Women’s Day, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organized a canvas painting event at Meskel Square, Addis Abeba, where 30 Ethiopia’s top artists will donate their art for the “Stop Early Marriage” campaign.

Read a report by UNICEF about early marriages

Filed Under Art, Human Rights