Putting an End to Child Marriages

In the Rajgarh district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a group of girl brides sit solemnly during celebrations that will culminate in their weddings later in the day.

Photo courtesy of the United Nations Children's Foundation: UNICEF/HQ95-0155/SONDEEP SHANKAR/INDIA

March 8, 2001, New York, NY---Today, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a report entitled "Early Marriage: Child Spouses" to document a rise in the incidence of child marriage among poor peoples in some communities in Africa and Asia. The report was issued at a time when the marriage age has generally been on the rise throughout the world. However, according to UNICEF, at least half of all girls in countries ranging from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Afghanistan are married off before they reach the age of 18.

"Forcing children, especially girls, into early marriages can be physically and emotionally harmful," says Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF. "It violates thier rights to personal freedom and growth. Yet until now, there has been no attempt to examine child marriage as a human rights violation in and of itself."

The UNICEF report lists poverty as the primary reason for early marriage. In Bangladesh, for example, poverty-stricken parents who can no longer afford to take care of their daughters are persuaded to part with them through marriage, which is often a means of recruting young girls into a life of prostitution abroad. In Iraq, where 28 percent of adolescents marry before the age of 18, a recent suvey revealed that poverty was the number one reason parents encouraged their children to marry early.

Out-of-wedlock pregnancies are yet another factor in the rush to marry early. In Niger, a recent survey found that 44 percent of 20 to 24 year-old women in were married before they reached the age of 15 because their fathers were concerned about the potential of pregnancies outside of marriage.

The UNICEF report tackles the problem of early marriage as a basic violation of children's rights as guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international document signed by all U.N. member countries excluding the United States and Somalia. The report goes on to examine many of the implications of child marriage, from restrictions of personal freedom to its impact on health and education.

"This [report] is another step in a growing movment to end the silent despair of millions of children, especially girls, who are being shuttered away in lives often full of misery and pain," says Bellamy.

For both boys and girls, early marriage has devastating physical, emotional, and intellectual consequences. The practice virtually ends a child's chances of pursuing an education or exploring professional and social life opportunities. For girls, the end result of child marriage has almost invariably been premature pregnancy. Girls aged 15 to 19 give birth to 15 million babies a year. Many of them do so without attending an ante-natal clinic or receiving the help of a professional midwife. The consequences of early pregnancy include not only higher rates of maternal mortality worldwide, but also the possible development of holes in the lining that separates the vagina from the bladder or rectum. The condition, known as fistula, is common in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Child marriage also increases the risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases for teenage girls. Exposure to these diseases is often related to the false belief amongst some in non-industrialized countries that any man who sleeps with a virgin will be cured of HIV/AIDS. And beyond the physiological damage of child marriage, girls are also more likely to face a lifetime of domestic and sexual subservience.

The domestic violence that comes with early marriage has compelled many young girls to run away in desperation. "Those who do so, " according to the UNICEF report, "and those who choose a marriage partner against the wishes of their parents, may be punished, or even killed by their families." These girls run the risk of 'honor killings'--the murder of a woman who has scorned her family name. Honor killings now regularly occur in Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Turkey.

In Egypt, 29 percent of married adolescent girls have been beaten by their husbands and, of these girls, 41 percent have been beaten during pregnancy. In Jordan, a study published last year revealed that 26 percent of reported cases of domestic violence were committed against wives who were under the age of 18.

Prevention of the practice comes through education of parents and children--married or not--about the dangers of early marriage. UNICEF has launched two programs to tackle the problem in South Asia and Africa, the two regions with the highest rates of child marriage in the world. In South Asia, UNICEF runs the Meena Initiative, which educates people about the danger of preferring male babies and focuses on the unfair treatment girls receive in the family as well as their lack of access to healthcare and education. The initiative also attempts to raise consciousness about harmful traditional practices such as dowry, sexual harassment and early marriage.

In Africa, UNICEF has launched a radio program called the Sara Adolescent Girl Communication Initiative in ten eastern and southern African countries. The program implores its listeners to keep girls in school. It also cover topics such as HIV/AIDS, domestic responsibilities for females, Female Genital Mutilation and early marriage.

For more information about UNICEF programs focused on early marriage, visit www.unicef.org

Celebration

and

Agitation

on International Women's Day

Just before a NASA space shuttle took off for the international space station on March 8, the ship's commander held up a sign that said "Happy Women's Day" in English and Russian.

A few hours later, a popular American morning show called "The Today Show" commemorated IWD by airing an interview with feminist Susan Jane Gilman, author of "Kiss My Tiara." They called the tome "a woman's guide to power."

In Canada, women gathered at the United Nations Association in Toronto to speak out about the abuses against Afghan women under the Taliban's misogynist rule.

Women in Europe and the Americas joined in a Global Strike to protest wage inequality based on gender.

Throughout all corners of Asia and Africa, women staged plays, held demonstrations and marches to protest violence against women and gender injustice.

Online, millions of men and women continued to sign on to a postcard campaign to the United Nations to protest the poverty and suffering of millions of women around the globe. The campaign was launched by the Federation des Femmes de Quebec (FFQ) and built upon the momentum of their anti-poverty march to the U.N. in October.

In hundreds of cities and villages around the world, International Women's Day--March 8--has entered the consciousness of women and men, policymakers and housewives, from Manila to Miami. But the everyday reality of women around the world has yet to significantly change.

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Grassroots Women Unite!

by Helen Drusine

In Montreal, buses let women off between stops at night, new metro stations are surrounded by see-through glass to make women feel safer, emergency telephones are within easy reach, and workers at some 150 small business have been trained to assist women who feel unsafe.

In the Philippines, battered women's shelters are easier to find, police stations in 51 cities have a woman's desk with a female officer who handles physical and sexual abuse cases and special rooms have been set up for abuse victims at two government hospitals. And victims of abuse are finally armed with a new law against domestic violence.

In Costa Rica, where one out of three women suffer from domestic violence, an organization of women is lobbying government officials to make the law against domestic abuse more responsive to women's needs. The organization is also training police, health care workers and other professionals on the special needs of women who have been abused.

All these initiatives are possible because of grassroots women's activism. And the strength of the movement has been nowhere more visible than through the efforts of GROOTS International (Grassroots Women's Organizations Operating Together) and the Huairou Commission, an umbrella group of grassroots women's organizations that was established during the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference.

From June through October of last year, GROOTS and Huairou held monthly weeklong retreats during a World's Fair Expo in Germany. The workshops were conducted under the auspices of the "Grassroots Women's International Academy" (GWIA). GWIA will host its first ever gathering of member organizations in New York City in early June. The meeting will be in conjunction with Istanbul +5, the five year review of the 1996 U.N. Habitat conference in Istanbul, Turkey which created a plan of action for ensuring safe and secure housing for all.

During the course of GWIA meetings, women's activists have exchanged strategies and coordinated training that would help grassroots women everywhere set up projects that have worked elsewhere. The academy also links grassroots women to outside professionals by partnering with members of the media, development foundations, academia, government, NGOs and international agencies. Together, these groups have created solutions to some of the most challenging problems of our time.

Take the Philippines. Eight years ago, victims of domestic violence had nowhere to go. There were no laws prohibiting violence against women and doctors and police were insensitive to the needs of abused women, often blaming them for inciting the abuse. Then Bantay Bantay, a women's group formed "Community Watch Groups Against Domestic Violence" in Cebu City. The group was formed after a survey revealed that six out of every ten women in Cebu City had been physically or sexually abused. Now there are Bantay Bantay groups working with more than 3,000 women in 51 cities throughout the country to create a society that is fair, equal and violence-free.

Bantay Bantay volunteers have surrounded houses where a domestic conflict was in progress and have thrown stones on the roof and banged bottles or spoons on the ground to let the perpetrator know people were watching. If their tactics did not result in an end to the violence, volunteers entered the house to rescue the victim. The group also brings warring couples together for mediation and provides temporary shelter and food to women who have been the victims of domestic abuse.

In Montreal, The Comite d'Action Femmes et Securite Urbaine (CAFSU -- The Women's Urban Safety Action Committee) was also formed eight years ago after the city government promised do something about women's safety. A poll in l993 revealed that 66 per cent of women did not feel safe at night and on the city's public transit system. CAFSU persuaded the local transit authority to let women off between regular, scheduled bus stops to help them avoid walking through an area they deemed to be unsafe. The city also renovated four metro stations by surrounding them entirely by glass, which enabled women to "see and be seen." And small businesses that were willing to provide a refuse for women fleeing urban attackers put signs in their windows that read, "Here You're in Good Hands. Your Safety is Important to Us." The goal in Montreal was to increase urban safety by protecting women's full mobility. The result has been a downward spiral of violence against women in public spaces. "First we wanted women to feel safer," says Michele Chappaz of CAFSU. "Once they felt safer, they would be able to attend university at night and live a full life. This gives them an equal voice and the opportunity to be a positive influence in society. We see assault and fear as ways of controlling women." Chappaz stressed that these actions were only possible because of a strategic partnership between grassroots women's organizations and local authorities.

In Costa Rica, the Alianza de Mujeres Costarricenses (AMC) works for women's rights, social justice, equality and peace. Formed after the Costa Rican civil war in 1952, AMC believes that women can fight discrimination and violence--sexual, physical or mental--when they are united and organized. The 20,000 union members who comprise the organization are housewives, farmers, workers, professionals and mothers. They have all suffered the consequences of economic and social discrimination. The union negotiates with, pushes and obliges government officials to implement laws that are beneficial for women. It brings attention to domestic violence and violence in the workplace. It has been lobbying various organizations to make the law against domestic violence more responsive to women's needs. "In societies that justify gender discrimination women become the subjects of violence," Monica Vega Zuniga, an alliance leader, told GWIA participants. "In Costa Rica, one out of three women suffer from domestic violence. Yet they remain invisible in statistics, politics and decision-making. They are systematically violated in their emotional and physical integrity. Our organization, much like all women's grassroots activists, is simply the story of those women searching for peace."

Helen Drusine is a freelance writer based in New York City.

BigTobacco Targets Women in the Global South

by Ginger Otis

Imagine yourself driving through the streets of a modern-day city when the image of a woman plastered on an oversized billboard catches your eye. She is just stepping out of a shower, her body alluringly bent forward, a hand tantalizingly poised to sweep aside the curtain. Her eyes look directly into yours, and the hint of a smile plays around her mouth. On the bottom of the canvas, just above a logo for Winston Light Cigarettes, are the words "Do I Look Shy?" Typical tobacco advertising, right? Well maybe in the West where ads linking women’s liberation to cigarette smoking have been common for the past thirty years. But in the developing world, where this ad is running, these types of images are relatively new - and are frighteningly effective at convincing young women that it is cool to smoke.

In fact, so overpowering are the smoking images currently proliferating in the developing world that at 11th World Conference on Health--a six-day gathering of more than 4000 scientists and tobacco-control activists held last August in Chicago--the issue was given top priority. According to health activists, if the tobacco industry’s marketing onslaught isn’t stopped, there will be a global health crisis of epic proportions.There are already about a billion smokers globally, but according to the latest statistics only 236 million are women--about 12 percent. By the year 2025, the number of women smokers is expected to triple, to more than 600 million. Over 80 percent of those new female smokers will live in developing countries, places with limited medical capacity and little infrastructure for early cancer detection or other programs to limit the harm of smoking.

None of this bothers big tobacco, which is working diligently to build new markets to compensate for losses elsewhere. In the industrialized West, for example, the smoking rate among men is now just 39 percent, a sharp drop from 70 percent earlier this century. And only 23 percent of American women aged 18 or above smoked during the 1990s, down from a peak of 33 percent in the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, in the developing world, the male smoking rate is up to 59 percent; smoking amongst females has climbed to 9 percent, rising along with the proliferation of American-style cigarette ads. Such gains translate into big money: Philip Morris's international tobacco profits have increased 256 percent in the past 10 years, while domestic profits rose only 16 percent. For tobacco companies who look at developing countries with low smoking rates solely as untapped markets, the future of big sales overseas lies with women - the only demographic left to be exploited in those regions. The ultimate irony in all this is that big tobacco’s marketing formula in the developing world is merely a modernized version of the "smoking = liberation" campaign they used to hook a generation of western female smokers several decades ago. After Virginia Slims hit paydirt in the 1960s with the ubiquitous phrase, "You’ve Come a Long Way Baby," other companies emulated their formula and women in the United States began smoking in record numbers, followed by their sisters in northern Europe and eventually southern Europe.

"One of the saddest things we've learned," says Matt Myers of Tobacco Free Kids, referring to the 50-year sweep of smoking through the U.S. and Europe, and into Mediterranean countries, "is that as women smoke like men, they die like men." Lung cancer and heart disease rates for women are exploding throughout the developed world. In the U.S., lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the leading killer of women. Women who smoke and use oral contraceptives have an increased risk of strokes and cancer, and "low-tar" and "light" cigarettes--brands marketed almost exclusively to women--can cause very rare and malevolent carcinomas in lung tissue. Women smokers have a higher risk of osteoporosis and cervical cancer, not to mention complications with fertility and pregnancy. As an entire generation of western women--the first to fall prey to big tobacco’s marketing--begins to sicken and die from smoking-related illnesses, tobacco companies continue to use the image of healthy, blond, "emancipated" western women to sell smoking in the developing world.

"Do I Look Easy to Handle?" queries another ad from the same Winston Light series mentioned above. The image features a leather-clad woman sitting astride a motorbike. "Do I Look Like I Would Cook You Breakfast?" this from a steely-eyed woman sitting on a park bench smoking a cigarette. Despite the fact that these ads have been developed for and are running in South Africa, all the women are Caucasian.

"This is a normal part of the marketing strategies of tobacco companies," says Nancy Kaufman, vice president of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation in D.C.. "Most young people in developing nations want to emulate America like never before, so it’s easy for tobacco exec's to exploit the idea of freedom and rebellion in their ads." This is clearly seen in a series of ads developed for the Asian market where female consumers are highly sought. "I'm going the right way--keeping the rule of the society," reads a Virginia Slims ad translated by antismoking activists, "but at the same time I am honest with my own feeling. So I don't care if I behave against the so-called 'rules' as long as I really want to." Surrounding this faux-empowerment copy is an image of a slender woman with ambiguous looks--possibly Asian, possibly European--embracing a fair-haired man, and beneath the woman the words "BE YOU" are written in big, bold letters. Despite the apparent contradiction of telling Asian and African women to "be themselves" in ads featuring a clearly Western aesthetic, campaigns like these are tremendously effective.

"While Asia develops economically," explains Kaufman, "the region as a whole is undergoing some powerful social changes. Women, for example, are starting to work more outside the home and that makes them attractive to tobacco companies for two reasons: One, they now have disposable income to spend on smoking, and two, it makes them ripe for the idea that smoking somehow represents independence." Not only do tobacco companies promote a link between smoking and independence in the non-industrialized world, they also deliberately choose images linking smoking to better health. "My pleasure!" states another ad, featuring an athletic blond woman taking a boxing class. In the U.S., most viewers probably know there's a good chance she's increasing her odds of lung damage. But a recent study showed that in China, which has the largest number of potential female smokers worldwide, two out of three women think smoking is harmless--not because they can't understand the danger, but because they simply aren't being told. Myers and other health advocates consider it despicable to pitch cigarettes as healthy despite massive evidence to the contrary, but in the developing world tobacco makers are under no real obligation to disclose risks. Even in countries where warning labels are required, tobacco companies are under no obligation to be specific: "Smoking Causes Impotence" was the only warning on cigarette packs in Thailand for many years. Moreover, there are few if any laws banning TV or billboard advertising, no requirements that companies disclose how much they've spent on lobbying and "donations" to politicians, and few restrictions on promotion--it's perfectly legitimate to provide free street signs for a small village, then plaster the signs with cigarette logos, as one American company did.

But across the developing world women activists are beginning to fight back against big tobacco’s marketing hegemony. Nicola Christofides, a member of Women’s Health Project in South Africa, says that health advocates in her country are anxious to develop a smoking prevention program while smoking rates are still relatively low. "We have initiated a tobacco control network in the region named Southern African Development Community (SADC). It focuses specifically on educating women about the dangers of smoking, and we also try to control the access tobacco companies have to our villages and towns." Christofides admits that it's slow going because, she says, "There are so many other important issues in South Africa right now - like AIDS and violence against women - that seem much more immediate." She adds that women’s groups are beginning to mobilize, and in the near future, she says, "We will concentrate on passing legislation that restricts advertising by tobacco companies." Normally Christofides and activists like her who battle big tobacco’s money and influence throughout the developing world go it alone, without support from the international community. But recently, spooked by the idea of where world health costs could end up after another 20 years of unchecked tobacco marketing, the World Bank has thrown its hat into the non-smoking corner.

Tobacco-related illnesses already cost the global economy an estimated $200 billion a year--and this without the added burden of several hundred million women and child smokers in the developing world. Fearful of where that number might end up, the World Bank, an institution that traditionally has supported multinational tobacco companies, issued a report earlier this year, called Curbing the Epidemic. In it, the World Bank found that a "falling demand for tobacco does not mean a fall in a country's total employment level," subverting an oft repeated claim by tobacco companies that millions of farmers and businesses are dependent on their products. Activists see this as a major blow to tobacco companies, which for years have been protected by institutions like theWorld Bank. The World Health Organization--which just released a study showing tobacco companies spent years working to undermine its antismoking campaigns--is also getting into the act. Attendees at last August’s conference spent much of their time hammering out details for WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control--a treaty that WHO hopes will eventually be signed by all 191 members of its governing body. It will attempt to restrict advertising, but above all it will try to force manufacturers to fully disclose the dangers of smoking. If cigarette companies violate these regulations, they can be held accountable as they are beginning to be in the U.S., where a Miami jury recently decreed that five tobacco companies pay $145 billion in punitive damages to sick Florida smokers.

For activists around the globe, a binding, global treaty restricting big tobacco marketing would mean a major victory. "It has not escaped our attention," says Kaufman, "that the tobacco industry is expanding in locations where the litigation of individual rights is very limited. The industry thinks it won't be facing lawsuits from women in these countries for a very long time, if ever. But we think they are wrong. That's what this treaty is all about."

As scientists, activists, and advocates rallied in Chicago this summer, preparing for the upcoming treaty meeting in Geneva, the anti-smoking message seemed to be gaining momentum. In South Africa, activists won a major battle when Parliament passed new legislation in September that severely limits tobacco advertising. According to new laws, tobacco companies must label their product with clear health warnings, are prohibited from marketing to teenagers, and cannot indulge in "brand stretching" (i.e. selling non-smoking goods that are covered with cigarette logos, like the well-known "Joe Cool" camel icon pushed by Camel cigarettes). However, right on the heels of that good news came a blow from the European Union (E.U.): Despite strong lobbying from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), the E.U. decided that it would not ban tobacco advertising throughout all member countries.

According to activists, the impact of this decision is quite large. "We were hoping for a ban because European countries tend to share media services." explains Kaufman. "This means that even if an E.U. member country has banned tobacco advertising, cigarettee companies can simply place their ads in media outlets of neighboring countries and very often it will be disseminated across borders." A prime example of this is Switzerland, says Kaufman, which broadcasts TV programming from Italy, Germany, and France. If the E.U. had enacted a member-wide ban, all European media would be free of tobacco advertising. Despite this recent setback, the global anti-smoking campaign is gaining worldwide attention and the tobacco industry has been forced into an uncharacteristically defensive position. At the recent E.U. anti-smoking summit, activists wrested a public admission from leading cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris that its product does indeed cause illness and can lead to death.

If W.H.O.'s campaign continues to be successful, perhaps big tobacco will finally be forced to put a little reality into their advertising campaigns both in the U.S. and overseas, so that men and women will be more aware of the health risks they incur every time they light up. After all, how effective would the Winston Light cigarette campaign be if the tagline for the series was : "Do I Look Like I’m Developing Lung Cancer?"

Ginger Otis is a freelance journalist based in New York City.

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