Promundo will launch in Brasília, September 9, an unprecedented survey in Brazil on the situation of girls who experience marriage during childhood and adolescence. “She goes on my boat: marriage in childhood and adolescence in Brazil” analyzes attitudes and practices surrounding marriage in childhood and adolescence in the two Brazilian states with the highest prevalence of this practice, according to the 2010 census: Pará and Maranhão.
Despite high absolute numbers of marriage during childhood and adolescence in Brazil, the problem has not been a constituent part of research agendas and the formulation of national policies to protect the rights of girls and women, or to promote gender equality. Brazil – like the rest of Latin America – was also absent from global discussions and actions around this practice. Unlike what happens in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia where marriages take on ritualized contours, in Brazil the nature of the practice is mostly informal and consensual.
Although there is a relevant set of research and debates on public policies around issues related to marriage in childhood and adolescence in Brazil - such as teenage pregnancy, school dropout and dropout, sexual exploitation in childhood and adolescence, child labor and violence against women and children – no study addresses this practice directly or its causes and consequences for the lives of millions of girls and young women.
The research was carried out from 2013 to 2015 by Promundo in partnership with teams from the Federal University of Pará and Plan Internacional Brasil and was supported by the Ford Foundation.
Numbers According to one estimate, Brazil ranks fourth in the world in absolute numbers of women married up to the age of 15, with 877 thousand women aged between 20 and 24 who were married up to the age of 15 (11%) . Brazil is also the fourth country in absolute numbers of girls married under the age of 18: around 3 million women aged between 20 and 24 were married before the age of 18 (36% of the total number of married women in that same age group) ¹ . In other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, occurrence levels are higher only in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. According to data collected in the 2010 Census5, just over 88 thousand girls and boys (ages between 10 and 14 years old) are in consensual, civil and/or religious unions in Brazil.
Research launch “She goes on my boat: Marriage in childhood and adolescence in Brazil” Date: September 9th Time: 9am to 11:30am Location: UNICEF – Anriette Lima Auditorium, SEPN 510 Block A – 2nd Floor, ED, Ministry of Health, Unit 2, Brasilia DF.
To see the event schedule, click on the image above.
1. Percentages in the age group 20 to 24 from the 2006 National Demographic and Health Survey of Children and Women (PNAD): page. 161, Table 2: “Age at first union,” available at: http://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/pnds/img/relatorio_final_PNDS2006_04julho2008.pdf (These percentages are the same as those used in UNICEF, 2014. The State of the World's Children 2014 In Numbers: Every Child Counts). Source of absolute numbers used in the 'ranking' Statistics and Monitoring Section, Division of Policy and Strategy, UNICEF (2013), made in Vogelstein, 2013. The 'ranking' calculation was based on a population of women between 20 and 24 years old (2011 ). Due to the lack of available data, the 'ranking' excludes China, Bahrain, Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.
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