12 million girls a year become child brides: UNICEF

DPA, 06th MARCH, 2018- An estimated 12 million girls under 18 are getting married every year globally, according to new data from UNICEF released on Tuesday.

The newly collated figures signal a 15 per cent drop in the last decade, from one in four to approximately one in five girls.

But if child marriage continues at the current rate, more than 150 million girls across the world will marry before their 18th birthdays by 2030, the UN children’s fund reports.

“When a girl is forced to marry as a child, she faces immediate and lifelong consequences. Her odds of finishing school decrease while her odds of being abused by her husband and suffering complications during pregnancy increase,” Anju Malhotra, UNICEF’s principal gender adviser, said in a statement. In South Asia, there has been a decrease in the prevalence of child brides from 50 per cent ten years ago to 30 per cent today.