(Kathmandu) – The Nepal government is not taking sufficient steps to end child marriage, causing deep harm to both girls and boys across the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In July 2014, Nepal’s government pledged to end child marriage by 2020. By 2016, this goal had shifted to 2030. But the government has yet to take the concrete steps needed to achieve either goal.
The 118-page report, “‘Our Time to Sing and Play’: Child Marriage in Nepal,” documents the economic and social pressures that lead to child marriage, and the devastating consequences of those marriages. Nepal has the third-highest rate of child marriage in Asia, with 37 percent of girls marrying before age 18, and 10 percent before 15, though the minimum age of marriage for both women and men is 20 under Nepali law. An estimated 11 percent of boys marry before 18. Nepal’s government has made some effort to end the practice, but a long-promised national plan has met with delays.
Read a text description of this video
OPENING:
[FOOTAGE GIRLS IN THE PARK]
TESTIMONY SHARMILA G.:
I used to imagine that life would just go by laughing and playing.
But now, there’s no laughter.
TITLE:
OUR TIME TO SING & PLAY
Child Marriage in Nepal
TESTIMONY SHARMILA G.:
I’m 14 years old.
I’ve been married for a year and a half.
When I see my friends going to school, I wish I could go with them.
And I wonder why I got married so soon.
TEXT ON SCREEN (TOS):
Married at 12
Married at 16
Married at 15
Married at 14
Married at 15
Married at 12
Married at 15
VOICEOVER
Nepal has the third highest rate of child marriage in Asia. 37 percent of girls marry before they’re 18, and 10 percent before 15, despite the fact that the legal age of marriage is 20.
Why are so many girls married?
LOWER THIRD:
SUMNIMA TULADHAR
Executive Coordinator
Child Workers in Nepal
TESTIMONY SUMNIMA:
The society is structured in a way that gives women status of second-class citizen in most of the South Asian countries. They are viewed as economically inactive citizens. Families are happy to marry them off because what will they bring?
LOWER THIRD:
VOICE OF MANJUSHREE THAPA
Writer & Activist
VOICEOVER
Girls are often seen as a “burden.” Families, struggling to get by, send girls to work. And then they unload them through marriage.
(TOS):
CHILD LABOR
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD WORKER
9 years old
TESTIMONY SELINA T.:
I help my mom with her work.
I put the bricks in a heap.
I make tea and shape the bricks.
VOICEOVER
Child labor is common in Nepal, with about 40% of children working. Girls are more likely to work than boys (TOS 48% VS. 36%) and most of the children in hazardous work are girls.
TOS [60%]
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD BRIDE
Married at 14
TESTIMONY ANJANA M.:
I wanted to study, but my parents didn’t let me go to school.
They just sent me away from them.
Men came to take me [to work as a maid] but I cried and said, “I don’t want to go, I want to stay home.”
But my father had already taken 3000 rupees [28 USD] for me, so I had to go.
VOICEOVER
Girls who work often have to leave school. And once they leave school, they’re more likely to get married.
TOS: BARRIERS TO EDUCATION
VOICEOVER
What keeps girls out of school? Child labor, domestic burdens, boys being prioritized over girls, and poverty.
TOS:
CHILD LABOR
DOMESTIC BURDENS
BOYS PRIORITIZED OVER GIRLS
POVERTY
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD BRIDE
Married at 15
TESTIMONY KALPANA T.:
I lived with [and was raised by] my grandparents. I used to study but we had [financial] problems.
So I had to get married.
Even if the education is free, we have to buy books, pencils, uniforms.
Of course it was costly
so we couldn’t afford it.
I thought if I got married, it would help my grandparents a little.
After I left home, there would be a little more [for them] to eat.
VOICEOVER
Rumors and gossip can have life altering consequences.
TOS: SOCIAL PRESSURE
TESTIMONY ANJANA M.:
I didn’t care much for boys. I didn’t even want to get married.
Then girls from the village started teasing me [suggesting I was in a relationship with a man in the village].
So I started to cry.
There were too many rumors, so I told him I would marry him.
I didn’t have any options.
VOICEOVER
With a dearth of options, children are choosing to get married on their own, some as young as 12 or 13. In Nepal, these unions are called love marriages and they’re on the rise. Often, they’re born of desperation – children are looking for a way out of abuse or poverty at home, hard labor, or an arranged marriage.
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD BRIDE
Married at 14
TESTIMONY TILMAYA M.:
[My parents] told me not to marry him. They told me to marry somebody else from another village.
They berated me.
That’s why we eloped.
VOICEOVER
Whether it’s a forced child marriage or a love marriage, the damage to the lives of girls and their families is often the same.
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD BRIDE
Married at 12
TESTIMONY SHARMILA G.:
I’m pregnant now.
Seven months.
I’m still a child and I’m pregnant so I feel strange.
I didn’t know anything about babies, how they’re conceived, I had no idea.
LOWER THIRD:
CHILD BRIDE
Married at 12
TESTIMONY LALITA B.:
I had three children but two of them died. This is the third one.
[The doctor] told me it was because I was too young, my body couldn’t handle pregnancy.
They said, “Your uterus is small.”
I don’t want what happened to me to happen to [my daughter].
My life is destroyed. I hope it will turn out differently for her.
TESTIMONY KALPANA T.:
When I see my friends going to school,
I wish I could go to school too,
to study more, to stand on my own feet,
to do something [with my life].
VOICEOVER
Education and empowerment shouldn’t be a distant dream for girls in Nepal.
LOWER THIRD:
YASODHA MAJHI
Student
19 years old
TESTIMONY YASODHA:
People think that girls can’t do anything.
But once we’re educated we’d be equal to [boys].
They wouldn’t be able to oppress us for being girls and say that we’re not equal to them.
LOWER THIRD:
MOHNA ANSARI
National Human Rights Commission
TESTIMONY MOHNA:
Nepal has the best law [on child marriage] in South Asia,
but now is the time to look at how well it’s being enforced.
We must enforce it.
VOICEOVER
Nepal’s government promises reforms, but in towns and villages across the country, change is coming far too slowly. The government needs to come up with a real plan, and quickly, before more children see their futures stolen from them by child marriage.
“Many children in Nepal – both girls and boys – are seeing their futures stolen from them by child marriage,” said Heather Barr, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Nepal’s government promises reform, but in towns and villages across the country, nothing has changed.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 149 people across the country, including 104 married children and young adults who married as children. They came from a range of ethnic, religious, and caste backgrounds, but the majority were from Nepal’s Dalit or indigenous communities, reflecting the greater prevalence of child marriage in marginalized and lower caste communities. Human Rights Watch also interviewed activists, service providers, health care workers, educators, police, and experts.
Child marriage has been illegal in Nepal since 1963, but Human Rights Watch found that police rarely act to prevent a child marriage or bring charges, and almost never do so unless a complaint is filed. Government officials often officially register child marriages, even though child marriage is a crime.
Human Rights Watch found that poverty, lack of access to education, child labor, social pressures, and dowry practices are among the factors driving child marriage. Researchers also found a dangerous increase in voluntary “love marriages” of children as young as 12 or 13, many prompted by deprivation or abuse at home, a desire to avoid a forced child marriage to a less-favored partner, lack of information about and access to contraception, and social pressures. The harm to children and their families caused by child marriage includes denial of access to education, serious health consequences including death as a result of early pregnancy, and domestic abuse including violence, sexual violence, and abandonment.
The government’s failure to enforce the law means that child marriage is a frequent coping mechanism for poor families. Parents who are unable to feed their children may seek a husband for their daughters simply so that the girls can eat. Poor girls often leave school and work instead because their families cannot afford associated costs, even when education is “free,” or because the government does not require children to go to school. Girls often marry as a direct consequence of leaving school.
Social pressures, including an expectation in many communities that girls should marry soon after they begin menstruating, or even before, make child marriage not only accepted but expected in some communities. Lack of access to information about sexual and reproductive health or to contraceptive supplies puts children at risk of a rushed marriage in response to, or in fear of, extramarital pregnancy.
Married girls often become pregnant quickly, and are expected to, with serious health consequences from early and closely spaced pregnancies. Infant mortality is more prevalent in cases of early pregnancy. Many of the girls interviewed said they suffered violence and sexual violence.
“I had an arranged marriage and I had no say in that – I had no say in getting pregnant as well,” said Nutan C., 21, who was married at age 16 and was the mother of a 4-year-old daughter and an18-month-old son, and was 6 months pregnant when she spoke to Human Rights Watch.
In 2014, at the international “Girl Summit” in London, United Kingdom, Nepal’s minister of women, children, and social welfare pledged to strive to end child marriage by 2020. By the time the Nepal government held its own national “Girl Summit” in Kathmandu in March 2016, this goal had shifted to 2030, the end date for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The government has worked with the UN, nongovernmental groups, and other partners to develop a National Strategy to End Child Marriage, which it said will be the foundation for a detailed National Plan of Action with funds budgeted to carry it out. But progress on developing the plan has been slow, and the strategy does not provide a sufficient detail to offer a roadmap for ending child marriage by 2030.
At the village level, there is little evidence of efforts by the government to end child marriage or mitigate the harm that married children experience. The few public awareness programs were often the work of nongovernmental organizations. School attendance is often low, especially for girls, and is not required by the government. Many adolescents do not get the information about sexual and reproductive health that schools are supposed to teach. Government health facilities provide free family planning services, but many young people – married and unmarried – are not aware that the services exist, or face difficulties accessing this help because of distance, stigma, or family pressure.
“We interviewed a horrifying number of adolescent girls who were mourning their dead infants,” said Barr. “These stories are intolerable – and usually preventable. Ending child marriage in Nepal will require reforms of Nepal’s laws, its police and local government response, birth and marriage registration, schools, and health care. The government has promised change, and that change needs to start now.”
