Abstract
Child marriage is a harmful and discriminatory global practice, robbing millions of girls of their childhood. Global attention and momentum to end early marriage has increased over the years; however, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this progress. It has been predicted that over the next decade up to 10–13 million more girls will be at risk of child marriage because of the pandemic. Since Niger has consistently had the highest rate of child marriage in the world, this study will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child marriages within the west and African region but specifically within Niger. This article will look at past response efforts to other pandemics, specifically Ebola, and show how the girl-child remains disproportionately disadvantaged, especially during pandemics. The article will conclude with recommendations on the importance of incorporating a gender analysis into preparedness and response efforts to eliminate child marriages.
Highlights
Child marriage1 is a harmful and discriminatory global practice robbing millions of girls of their human rights by hindering their health, development and well-being (Yaya et al 2019)
One of the biggest concerns of the consequence of the COVID-19 measures is that the pandemic is estimated to have disrupted significant efforts made far to end child marriages (Briggs and Ngo 2020), the resulting significance thereof is that millions more will be forced into early marriages between 2020 and 2030 (UNICEF 2020b)
Whilst looking at some of the other remaining challenges like the pathways to child marriages in Niger during COVID-19, this paper will highlight some positive guidelines in reducing the rates of early marriages and conclude with recommendations designed to respond to the needs of adolescent girls during a crisis
Summary
Child marriage is a harmful and discriminatory global practice robbing millions of girls of their human rights by hindering their health, development and well-being (Yaya et al 2019). The impact of COVID-19 on girls’ human rights and the goal of achieving gender equality depends largely on how countries choose to respond to the pandemic In this regard, the Ebola outbreaks and other public health crises in the African regions provide indicators of how adolescent girls are disproportionally affected by these pandemics (Wenham et al 2020), and the lessons from past disease outbreaks in the region have illustrated the importance of incorporating a gender lens into disease response and prevention (Wenham et al 2020; Davies and Bennett 2016; Smith 2019). The overall aim is to encourage pandemic preparedness in WACA but within Niger, thereby addressing systemic weaknesses that have led to the spike in child marriages and allow Niger the opportunity to prepare for and mitigate the impact of future pandemics on the girl-child
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