As Tuesday’s major summits here and in London focused global attention on adolescent girls, the United Nations offered new data warning that more than 130 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, while more than 700 million women alive today were forced into marriage as children.
Amidst intensifying concern over the fate of more than 200 girls abducted by a radical Islamist group in northern Nigeria, at least 100 representatives of various activist groups Tuesday pressed the U.S. Senate to approve legislation designed to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls and discourage child marriages around the world.
Advocacy groups are urging for partnerships between governmental organisations and private sector businesses to better prevent child marriage and combat the economic, development and health problems it causes.
Lawyers and rights activists are calling for a change in Sudan’s laws which allow for the marriage of girls as young as 10.
The United Nations has launched a global campaign to abolish an anachronistic social practice still prevalent in some communities around the world: child marriages.