Ending Child Marriage

Trends in child marriage

Over the past decade, the prevalence of child marriage has continued to decline. Globally in that period, the proportion of women who were married as children decreased by
15 per cent, from 1 in 4 to about 1 in 5 women. It is now estimated that a total of 650 million women alive today were married as children. However, the current rate of decline in child marriage is not sufficient to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of ending child marriage by 2030; at this rate it would take 50 years to eliminate child marriage worldwide. The reduction in child marriage has been uneven. While South Asia has led the way on reducing child marriage, the global burden is shifting to sub-Saharan Africa, where rates of progress need to be scaled up dramatically to offset population growth.