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By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of millions of dollars in
U.S. aid goes to countries where girls as young as 12 are forced to marry,
a rights abuse that is the focus of legislation to be introduced in
Congress this month.
In 2006, $623 million in U.S. funds went to 16 of 20 countries with the highest child-marriage rates, including Bangladesh, Mali and Mozambique, according to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), a Washington non-profit group that works with governments on development and women's issues. The new legislation would authorize $100 million over four years to try to stop the practice, most prevalent in West Africa and South Asia. Bills by Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., also would require the State Department to include child-marriage statistics in annual human rights reports on other countries. "Every year in poor countries, millions of girls — preteens and teens — become the wives of older men," McCollum says. "This custom is not marriage, but rather sanctioned sexual abuse and a human rights violation that destroys girls' lives." Child marriage deprives girls of education, threatens their health and the health of their children, and thwarts efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, says Anju Malhorta, ICRW vice president. About 51 million women worldwide now ages 20-24 were married before age 18, and 100 million more girls will become child brides over the next decade, according to figures compiled for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). One in three girls in developing countries marries before age 18. In Niger, a poor West African nation, more than three-quarters of girls are married before 18, most at age 15, USAID says. Parents in poor countries often marry off young daughters to ensure that they will be cared for and because traditional cultures prefer that brides be virgins. The ICRW says young brides are more likely to die in childbirth and contract HIV than women in their 20s and older. The group also says children born to teen mothers are more likely to die in infancy. "They (child brides) cannot negotiate the terms of sex" with husbands, who are usually older and have had previous sexual partners, says Kathleen Selvaggio, author of an ICRW report. They "can't insist on fidelity or condom use." Researchers have focused on keeping girls in school as a way to discourage child marriages. Half of girls in India are married before age 18 even though underage marriages violate national law, the ICRW says. Rahul Chhabra, spokesman for the Indian Embassy in Washington, says his government "is aware of the problem and trying to do its best," imposing jail terms and fines, even for those attending weddings of underage brides. An official at the Niger Embassy, Amadou Sounna, says his government is "in the battle against child marriage, recognizing the terrible consequences it can have, especially for the health of girls." Sounna says Niger works against the practice through information campaigns and tries to keep girls in school. About a third of girls in Niger are enrolled in school, he notes. Katherine Blakeslee, director of USAID's Office of Women in Development, says the Bush administration tries to deal with the issue by integrating it into other programs. Says Rep. McCollum: "USAID and the State Department know this is a major problem and have started taking positive steps, but it's simply not enough." | |||||||||||
