Topic:
Country: United Kingdom
Delegate Name: Clare Cowen
Country: United Kingdom
Committee: ECOSOC
Topic: Child Marriage
Delegate: Clare Cowen
School: Williamston High School
The issue of child marriage is a major issue that occurs on the global scale. It is a devastating matter that should be taken with the utmost concern, for it affects the most vulnerable and precious members of society; children. The majority of child marriage victims are female, and the practice infringes upon the right to happiness and prosperity of millions of women and girls worldwide. It makes them increasingly more vulnerable to atrocities such as domestic violence, disrimination, and exclusion from economical and political participation. Statistically, twelve million girls worldwide are married before they reach the age of eighteen per year, and there are currently 650 million women in the world who were married as children. The rates of child marriage nearly double in underdeveloped countries, with forty percent of the female population married before the age of eighteen. These statistics are completely devastating, so it must be prioritized by the UN to take action now to help stop this horrendous practice and bring hope to the millions of child marriage victims worldwide.
The UN has declared the issue of child marriage to be a human rights violation and has set guidelines have currently been set to put a stop to the practice in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While the issue of child marriage is not as prominent in the United Kingdom, there has still been actions taken to even further lower the rates of child marriage within the country. The United Kingdom is committed to passing laws that would ban marriage before the age of eighteen for both genders. Currently, the legal age for marriage with parental consent in the United Kingdom is sixteen, despite the fact that the age for adulthood is eighteen. Lawmakers aim to get rid of the legal loophole that authorizes child marriage. It is also their goal to make it a criminal offence to assist or aid an underage marriage, including child marriages for religious regions and ones that occur abroad. The United Kingdom is committed to ending the practice of child marriage by the year 2030 under the United Nation’s Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The United Kingdom is currently working withunderdeveloped countries that are severely riddled with child marriage such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Guatemala, Malawi, and Tanzania. The United Kingdom works to end the practice of child marriage by empowering young people to advocate and campaign against child marriage, providing safe spaces for girls at risk, work with developing communities to ensure girls are valued, supporting girls to stay in school, and finding sources of financial aid to help families with children who are at risk of being married before the age of eighteen. The United Kingdom is willing to work with all countries who have signed the United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development. We believe that in intervening in individual countries to combat this issue.
