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USA Today - Child Marriages Rife in Nations Getting U.S. Aid

News Article

Date: July 17, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Women Minors and Children Marriage


USA Today - Child Marriages Rife in Nations Getting U.S. Aid

By Barbara Slavin

Hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid goes to countries where girls as young as 12 are forced to marry, a rights abuse that is the focus of legislation to be introduced in Congress this month.

In 2006, $623 million in U.S. funds went to 16 of 20 countries with the highest child-marriage rates, including Bangladesh, Mali and Mozambique, according to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), a Washington non-profit group that works with governments on development and women's issues.

The new legislation would authorize $100 million over four years to try to stop the practice, most prevalent in West Africa and South Asia.

Bills by Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., also would require the State Department to include child-marriage statistics in annual human rights reports on other countries.

"Every year in poor countries, millions of girls — preteens and teens — become the wives of older men," McCollum says. "This custom is not marriage, but rather sanctioned sexual abuse and a human rights violation that destroys girls' lives."


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