WHAT'S THE CHILD MARRIAGE RATE?

HOW BIG OF
AN ISSUE IS CHILD MARRIAGE?

15% of Filipino girls are married before their

18th birthday and 2% are married before
the age of 15.
According to UNICEF, the Philippines has
the 12th highest absolute number of child
brides in the world at 726,000.
Women in Armm, Mimaropa and
Soccsksargen marry earlier than those in
other regions.
ARE THERE COUNTRY-SPECIFIC DRIVERS OF CHILD
MARRIAGE IN THIS COUNTRY?

Child marriage is driven by gender

inequality and the belief that women and
girls are somehow inferior to men and boys.
There is limited information on child
marriage in the Philippines, but available
studies show that it is driven by:
 Trafficking: The trafficking of women and
girls from rural regions of Visayas and
Mindanao to urban cities such as Cebu
 City, Manila and Quezon City is common.
Trafficking also occurs in tourist
destinations such as Boracay, Angeles City
and Surigao where there is a high demand
for commercial sex from women and girls.
Some girls are forced into marriage. The
Philippines’ popular mail-order bride
industry also places girls at risk of being
subject to forced marriage.
 Religion: The Muslim Law on Personal
Status, based on Sharia law, allows
marriage at the age of 15 for boys and at
the onset of puberty for girls. The
Philippines is predominantly Roman
Catholic and the only country in the world
that does not allow divorce. This places
young married girls in a particularly
vulnerable position.
WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY COMMITTED TO?

The Philippines has committed to eliminate

child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in
line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable
Development Goals. The government did
not provide an update on progress towards
this target during its Voluntary National
Review at the 2016 High Level Political
Forum.
The Philippines co-sponsored the 2014 UN
General Assembly resolution on child, early
and forced marriage.
The Philippines ratified the Convention on
the Rights of the Child in 1990, which sets a
minimum age of marriage of 18, and
the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) in 1981, which obligates
states to ensure free and full consent to
marriage.
The Philippines has committed to
the ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination
of Violence against Women and Violence
against Children (2013), which
acknowledges the importance of
strengthening ASEAN efforts to protect
children from all forms of violence, including
early marriage.
During the Philippines’ 2017 Universal
Periodic Review, the Human Rights
Committee recommended that the
government revise the minimum age of
marriage for girls in the Code of Muslim
Personal Laws.
In 2016 the CEDAW Committee urged the
government to eliminate the root causes of
child and forced marriage, including
poverty, conflict and insecurity, as well as
vulnerability to the impact of natural
disasters. It also raised concerns between
the provisions of the Magna Carta on
Women and those of the Code of Muslim
Personal Laws and customary laws
applicable to indigenous communities,
which drive harmful practices such as child
and forced marriage.
In 2012 a UN envoy warned that Filipino
girls are at particular risk of being forced
into marriage and that the sexual
exploitation of girls remained socially and
culturally tolerated in the Philippines.
WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEGAL FRAMEWORK
AROUND MARRIAGE?

Under the Family Code 1988 the legal

minimum age of marriage is 18 for both
girls and boys. However girls are eligible to
marry as soon as they reach puberty and
with permission of the court under the
Muslim Law on Personal Status.
SOURCE

Child marriage is a social problem; it does

not protect the child’s rights. Child brides
easily face the risk of becoming widowed at
a young age because their husbands are
most likely older than them. Their husband
may also divorce or abandon them due to
violent behaviour towards their wives
including coercive sex and marital
breakdown. According to Early Marriage
(Umemoto, 2001), in Java, it has been found
that child brides are more likely to be
divorced by their husbands than girls who
marry at ages 20-24. Thus, they may go
through lots of difficulties after they are
being widowed, divorced or abandoned
such as financial problems, additional
discriminations by the society and denial of
their rights.
“It is not only unclear whether children are
protected against marriage at any aged, but
whether they were intended to be
protected,” said professor of International
law of Georgetown University’s School of
Foreign Service. (Bushell, 2002). Child rights
should be protected because children have
their rights to own their freedom, own a
basic life quality and be able to develop
physically, mentally and socially.