Abstract
Background: Over the last two decades, early marriage in the Gambia declined significantly (from 58% to 30%). Yet evidence indicates that nearly 8.6% of marriages in the Gambia involved girls younger than 15, and 46.5% of marriages are with girls aged 18 or below. The reasons for the decline but continuing practice of early marriage, despite existing legislation prohibiting child marriage, are not very well understood. Very few studies have been conducted to find out what and how local factors influence decisions about early marriage in the Gambia. More information is therefore needed on underlying reasons for the persistence of early marriage in the Gambia so that program managers can use this information to design strategies towards accelerating the decline of early marriages. Methods: The study was conducted in 24 rural settlements in Lower Baddibu District in the North Bank Region of the Gambia. It was based on a mixed-methods design including a cross-sectional household survey with a sample of 181 female adolescents and focus group discussions with 16 male and female parents. Focus group discussions were digitally-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic content analysis, while survey data were analyzed using Stata. Results: Using multiple regression analysis, this study found that ethnicity more than other factors, exerts an independent effect on early marriage. Themes identified during focus group discussions also revealed that fear of premarital sex and loss of virginity outside marriage were major reasons for the perpetuation of early marriage. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the practice of early marriage in rural Gambia is associated with ethnicity and practices related to social and cultural norms. The findings also suggest that in order to decrease early marriages, future efforts should focus on allaying the fears around premarital sex and loss of virginity related to delay in marriage.
Highlights
Marriage or child marriage, defined as marriage before the age of 18, is perceived as a grave violation of human rights
Data on demographic characteristics of female adolescents are presented, followed by factors associated with early marriage
The average age at which female adolescents first heard that their parents had arranged for their marriage was 16 years (Figure 1), which is below the national legal age of 18 years of marriage
Summary
Marriage or child marriage, defined as marriage before the age of 18, is perceived as a grave violation of human rights. The rate of decline has been slowest in West and Central Africa, the region with the highest prevalence of child marriage[1,2]. With the growing population of girls in the region, the number of child brides in West and Central Africa is projected to increase from 6.4 million in 2015 to 7.1 million by 20302 Good that they presented a universal definition of child marriage at the very beginning. Methods: The study was conducted in 24 rural settlements in Lower Baddibu District in the North Bank Region of the Gambia It was based on a mixed-methods design including a cross-sectional household survey with a sample of 181 female adolescents and focus group discussions with 16 male and female parents. The findings suggest that in order to decrease early marriages, future efforts should focus on allaying the fears around premarital sex and loss of virginity related to delay in marriage
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