A blind spot in international human rights framework: a space between tradition and modernity within the child marriage discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACT By studying child marriage as a discursive practice, this article argues that the current international legal framework of child marriage is problematic. Transnational organisations dismiss what they consider to be the ‘tradition’ of ‘the South’, while their linear conceptualisation of development fails to recognise the possibility of adolescent agency existing within ‘traditional’ social networks. This overlooked blind spot is a problem we encounter more frequently with human rights: without overcoming the blind spot, the human rights framework risks becoming self-defeating and failing to achieve the end – which is to protect agency of human beings. A reconceptualisation of the current black-and-white child marriage framework is needed, so that it becomes fully emancipatory and efficient in practice.