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COLOMBIA: Vote against child marriage – girls instead of women
Colombia raises the minimum marriage age to 18 to protect girls from child marriage and violence. An important step for the rights and development of minors.
COLOMBIA: Vote against child marriage – girls instead of women
Colombia's Congress has voted for a change in the law that would no longer allow minors to marry without parental consent.
Proposed law to increase the marriage age
The current proposal envisages raising the minimum age for marriage to 18, thereby protecting the rights and development opportunities of minors. However, this bill still needs to be signed by President Gustavo Petro.
Current regulation and necessary reforms
Under the current Civil Code, people can marry as young as 14 with parental consent. The original initiative to reform the law, presented in 2023, promoted the slogan “They are girls, not wives”. The aim was to protect young girls from being forced to marry in order to avoid being exposed to various forms of violence and losing out on education and development opportunities.
Statements from MPs and UN statistics
“Minors are not sexual objects, they are girls,” MP Clara López Obregón said in a statement after the proposal was approved.
The practice of child marriage is widespread worldwide and affects approximately 12 million girls annually, according to the UN agency for children, UNICEF. However, there has been a global decline in child marriages in recent years, the agency's statistics show. "Ten years ago, one in four young women aged 20 to 24 were married as children. Today that number has fallen to one in five," UNICEF reported.
Poverty as the main cause in Latin America
In Latin America, poverty is the main factor that leads to underage marriage. UNICEF notes that economic hardship often pushes young girls into such situations.