Strengthening Efforts to Prevent and Eliminate Child, Early and Forced Marriage

Calls upon States, with the participation of relevant stakeholders, including girls, women, religious and community leaders, civil society and human rights groups, men and boys, and youth organizations to develop and implement holistic, comprehensive and coordinated responses, strategies and policies to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, and to support already married girls, adolescents and women, including through the strengthening of child protection systems, protection mechanisms, such as safe shelters, access to justice and legal remedies and the sharing of best practices across borders in full compliance with international human rights obligations and commitments;

Urges States to enact, enforce, harmonize and uphold laws and policies aimed at preventing and ending child, early and forced marriage, protecting those at risk and supporting already married women and girls, and to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the informed, free and full consent of the intending spouses and that women have equality with men in all matters pertaining to marriage, divorce, child custody and the economic consequences of marriage and its dissolution;

Calls upon States to exercise due diligence in investigating, prosecuting and punishing violence against all children, paying particular attention to child- and gender-sensitive approaches, and to provide protection and universal access to comprehensive social, physical, mental and reproductive health, and legal services and counselling for all victims and survivors and to ensure their full recovery and reintegration into society;

Urges States to remove any provisions that may enable, justify or lead to child, early or forced marriage, including provisions that enable perpetrators of rape, sexual abuse or abduction to escape prosecution and punishment by marrying their victims, in particular by repealing or amending relevant laws;

Also urges States to ensure access to justice and accountability mechanisms and remedies for the effective implementation and enforcement of laws aimed at preventing and eliminating child, early and forced marriage, including by informing women and girls about their rights under relevant laws, training law enforcement officers and monitoring how they handle cases of child, early and forced marriage, improving legal infrastructure and removing all barriers to access to legal counselling, assistance and remedies;

Further urges States to strengthen their efforts to ensure free birth registration, including free or low-fee late birth registration, by means of universal, accessible, simple, expeditious and effective registration procedures, without discrimination of any kind, and marriage, divorce and death registration as part of the civil registration and vital statistics systems, especially for individuals living in rural and remote areas, including by identifying and removing all physical, administrative, procedural and any other barriers that impede access to registration and by providing, where lacking, mechanisms for the registration of customary and religious marriages;

Calls upon States to promote the meaningful participation and active consultation of children and young people in all issues affecting them, and to create awareness about their rights, including the negative impact of child, early and forced marriage, through safe spaces, forums and support networks that provide girls and boys with information, life skills training and the opportunities to be empowered and become agents of change within their communities;

Urges States to promote awareness-raising and to engage in dialogue within communities on the health implications of child, early and forced marriage, and to improve equal access to health-care facilities and sexual and reproductive health information, education and services, including modern forms of contraception;

Calls upon States to promote and protect the rights of women and girls to education through enhanced emphasis on quality education, including human rights education and training, and catch-up and literacy education for those who have not received formal education, including in remote areas, while recognizing that education is one of the most effective ways to prevent and end child, early and forced marriage and to help already married women and men, girls and boys to make more informed choices about their lives;

Urges Governments to promote and protect the human rights of all women and girls, including their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, and to adopt and accelerate the implementation of laws, policies and programmes that protect and enable the enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences;

Calls upon States, with the support of humanitarian partners, and in full collaboration with concerned communities and other stakeholders, to strengthen monitoring and interventions to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage in humanitarian settings and fragile situations, including by integrating and harmonizing such interventions into efforts focused on conflict prevention, protection of civilians, and access to information and services;

Urges States to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage by improving safety of girls at and on the way to and from school, including by establishing a safe and violence-free environment by improving infrastructure, such as transportation, and providing separate and adequate sanitation facilities, improved lighting, playgrounds and safe environments, and adopting policies to prohibit, prevent and address violence against children, especially girls, including sexual harassment and bullying and other forms of violence, through measures such as conducting violence prevention activities in schools and communities and establishing and enforcing penalties for violence against girls;

Calls upon States and encourages other stakeholders to address social norms, gender stereotypes and harmful practices that contribute to the acceptance and continuation of the practice of child, early and forced marriage, including by raising awareness of its harm to the victims and the cost to society at large and by providing opportunities for discussion among others, within communities, including with the involvement of unmarried girls and already married girls, adolescents and women, religious, tribal and community leaders, men and boys, and families on the benefits of delaying marriage and ensuring that girls receive education;

Calls upon States and the international community to create an environment in which the well-being of women and girls is ensured by, inter alia, cooperating, supporting and participating in efforts for the eradication of poverty, and reaffirms that investment in women and girls and the respect, protection and fulfilment of their rights are among the most effective ways to end the harmful practice of child, early and forced marriage;

Urges Governments, with the collaboration of relevant stakeholders, to tackle poverty and lack of economic opportunities for women and girls as drivers of child, early and forced marriage, including by ensuring women and girls inheritance and property rights, equal access to social protection, including direct financial support and microcredit for girls, families and guardians to encourage girls to continue their education; to develop livelihood opportunities and life skills education; and to promote women’s equal access to full and productive employment and decent work, as well as equal political participation and rights to inherit, own and control land and productive resources;

Also urges Governments to take measures to support girls and women who have been subjected to child, early and forced marriage, and calls upon States and all relevant actors to strengthen, inter alia, the development, enactment, implementation and monitoring of relevant legislation and protection mechanisms, such as safe shelters, counselling and other support services, as well as empowerment programmes focusing on, inter alia, education, health, livelihood, autonomy and decision-making;

Encourages relevant United Nations entities, regional and subregional organizations, civil society and other relevant actors and human rights mechanisms to continue to collaborate with and support Member States in developing and implementing strategies and policies at the national, regional and international levels to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage, and to support already married girls, adolescents and women;

Encourages States and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that child, early and forced marriage is given due attention in the work of the Human Rights Council, including relevant Council processes, debates and mechanisms, including the universal periodic review;

Invites relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council and relevant treaty bodies to give due consideration to the issue of child, early and forced marriage within their respective mandates;

Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to organize an expert workshop before the thirty-fourth session of the Human Rights Council to review and discuss the impact of existing strategies and initiatives to address child, early and forced marriage and to make recommendations for further action by States and the international community towards the full implementation of human rights obligations in this regard;

Also requests the High Commissioner to prepare a report on the deliberations held during the workshop and to submit it to the Human Rights Council at its thirty-fifth session;