Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage

The vision of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage is of a world without child marriage where girls and women enjoy equal status with boys and men and are able to achieve their full potential in all aspects of their lives.

The Problem

Child marriage is a global problem that cuts across countries, cultures, religions and ethnicities. Every year, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18, around 1 in 3 girls in the developing world. Child brides face huge challenges; neither physically nor emotionally ready to become wives and mothers, child brides are at greater risk of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, contracting HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence. With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely to live in poverty. Communities and nations also feel the impact: systems that undervalue the contribution and participation of girls and women limit their own possibilities for growth, stability and transformation. While rates are slowly declining, current projections show that, due to population increases, if we do not accelerate efforts to end child marriage, there will be 1.2 billion women alive in 2050 who will have married as children.

The Solution

Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage is a partnership of more than 800 civil society organizations from over 95 countries committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfill their potential. Stronger together, Girls Not Brides members bring child marriage to global attention, build an understanding of what it will take to end child marriage and call for the laws, policies and programs that will make a difference in the lives of millions of girls. The Partnership is supported by a secretariat, whose activities include amplifying local and global efforts, facilitating collective action between members, tracking policy developments and learning, building relationships with key actors, and strengthening members’ capacity. Girls Not Brides' members and partners have catalyzed tremendous progress since Girls Not Brides was launched in 2011. This includes new global and regional commitments, strengthened legal and policy frameworks in a number of countries, more shared evidence of ‘what works’, and new funding and programs. There is now a vibrant global movement to end child marriage, a once taboo topic with little political or public recognition. However, progress is fragile, and it is crucial that we now build on this momentum and focus on turning commitments into real change for girls around the world.