Skip to main content

Child, early and forced marriage

According to PLAN UK, one in every five girls in the developing world is married by the age of 18, and one in nine marries before they reach the age of 15. The Netherlands minister of  Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms. Liliane Ploumen, calls for a transformative approach to ending child, early and forced marriage by addressing its root causes:

"Child, early and forced marriage are symptoms of women’s rights violations and gender inequality. Real change will come from different ways of looking at women and girls, and a shift in power relations between women and men. We must invest in gender equality, women’s empowerment, sexual and reproductive health and rights and poverty eradication. We need to change social norms. We also need to talk to parents – this practice is not a symptom of lack of love, but of poverty and traditional values which are challenging to change. We are here creating momentum by talking about it - and we have to build on that. The Post2015 agenda provides an excellent opportunity to do that."

Minister Ploumen also stated that we have to put our money where are mouth is, and announced that she will create a fund for Dutch NGOs working with partners in the Global South to prevent child, early and forced marriage, as well as provide funds to UNICEF to continue their work on this issue.

The minister participated today in an official side-event by UNICEF and PLAN, "Lessons Learned in Country: How to End Child, Early and Forced Marriage", together with a.o. Minister Clara Makungwa from Malawi.

= Joni van de Sand on behalf of WO=MEN = 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women’s Rights Caucus Statement – Protect Women and Girls by upholding the Beijing Declaration

  The Women’s Rights Caucus, representing over 900 feminist advocates from around the world, urges you to oppose the proposed US draft resolution entitled  “Protection of women and girls through appropriate terminology.” Despite the title, we do not feel protected nor represented by this initiative. Download this statement as pdf.   Download this statement in Spanish.   On the heels of the first-ever recorded vote on the agreed conclusions of the annual meetings of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and in complete disregard of the significant opposition their proposal got in the negotiation room, the United States has circulated a new resolution proposal which attempts to falsely state that the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action agreed that  “gender” was defined as “men and women”. It attributes to annex IV of the Report of the Fourth World Conference of Women a meaning that was never agreed by Member States, effectively rewriting th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog van ngo-vertegenwoordiger Joyce Brummelman: de onderhandelingen

Ngo-vertegenwoordiger Joyce Brummelman met Benjamin Nolan van de PV in de VN Deze week was het eindelijk zover: mijn reis naar de Verenigde Naties om van dichtbij te volgen hoe de afspraken en onderhandelingen rondom de Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) steeds meer vorm krijgen. Access to justice – toegang tot het recht – klinkt misschien als één thema, maar in werkelijkheid bestaat het uit talloze dimensies. Elk land heeft een andere juridische werkelijkheid, andere barrières, andere verhalen. Als NGO vertegenwoordiger mocht ik deze discussies mede volgen en luisteren naar wat landen, experts en activisten hierover te zeggen hebben.   Ondanks de sneeuwstorm landde ik dinsdagmiddag in New York en ging ik direct door naar de Nederlandse Vertegenwoordiging van de Verenigde Naties. Daar hoorde ik hoe Nederland werkt aan een zo sterk mogelijke uitkomst van de CSW: ambitieus, principieel en met oog voor de realiteit van vrouwen en meisjes wereldwijd. De aftrap: landen in gesprek o...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Beat back the radicals!"

“We will beat back the radicals and we will fight all their falsehoods and we will help as best we can all the faithful UN delegations trying to help the unborn child. But, the Friday Fax and our presence at UN headquarters is not free. In fact, it is terribly expensive. Would you be able to make a sacrificial donation to our work of $500? $100? $50?” This quote is from a newsletter of an American based organization working to stop any agreement at the UN that might possibly be understood to mean that women can have a choice in their  reproduction. It is quite ironic to see the violence in the language, beat back the radicals, from a group who are working at the UN meeting devoted to ending Violence Against Women. Being here at the UN makes you feel in your body and soul that maintaining and advancing freedom of choice for women (and men) is a battle and not everyone fights fair. Some of our Dutch civil society friends attended a panel in which the two main speakers where ...
4 comments
Read more