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Servile marriage 2012, para. 103
- Paragraph text
- States should also increase and improve access to reproductive health services and information, in particular for girls and women, including access to family planning. Health information tailored to young mothers about proper nutrition and care for their health and the health of their babies should be made available. Access to reproductive health care for women and girls in urban and rural areas needs to be increased and improved by ensuring that adequate resources and health-care experts are available.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Infants
- Women
- Youth
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 102
- Paragraph text
- Education has been recognized as one of the most effective ways to delay early marriage and allow for married women to make more informed choices about their health and that of their families. States should establish more schools, recruit qualified teachers (in particular female teachers) and train teachers in subjects such as gender sensitivity, HIV/AIDS and reproductive and sexual health. They should also offer economic support and incentives for girls and their families, such as fee subsidies, scholarships, school supplies, school uniform and conditional cash transfers. There should be proper monitoring and evaluation of such transfers. States should also adopt all appropriate educational measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct that foster cultural practices among families that lead to servile marriage. Teachers and other educational staff should be trained to recognize vulnerable girls and react appropriately. Continuing formal education and vocational training for married girls and women should be provided.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 99
- Paragraph text
- In many countries with a legal minimum age for marriage, there are also exceptions for girls below that age. Where exceptions exist, rigorous procedures must be put in place to ensure that the marriage is in the child's best interests. Private and public institutions must be required to systematically consider how children's rights and interests are affected by their decisions and actions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 94
- Paragraph text
- Many communities believe that girls should marry and can never divorce because of cultural, religious and financial factors, among others. Consequently, families and communities resist change. In addition, there is an overwhelming belief that events within a family are private and should not be subject to outside interference. A wife who runs away is not permitted to return to her family and, if she does, she will be stigmatized for having left her husband, no matter how abusive the marriage. In some societies, it is believed that the husband has every right to discipline his wife and that there should be no interference in marital matters. The female spouse is often made to feel as thought she is at fault and must learn to be a better wife (i.e. more subservient).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 92
- Paragraph text
- In some cases, although laws may be in place to protect women and girls from servile marriage, the authorities fail to prosecute the perpetrators. Consequently, victims do not seek help from the police or judiciary as they fear further abuse from Government authorities or being forcibly returned to their husbands. According to a 2008 report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, between 70 and 80 per cent of Afghan marriages are forced, and 57 per cent are child marriages where one of the spouses is under the age of 16 years. In 2009, Afghanistan enacted legislation on the elimination of violence against women, in order to criminalize servile marriage and ensure that perpetrators were brought to justice. The law does not, however, address how authorities should treat a woman who runs away to escape the offences criminalized under the law. Consequently, girls and women who flee servile marriage are arrested and often convicted of intent to have sex outside marriage.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 88
- Paragraph text
- Women in servile marriage lack adequate protection in the light of their specific vulnerabilities arising from their gender, low social status and their age (if they are girls). Many countries lack laws criminalizing forced marriage or slavery-like practices that arise from servile marriage such as domestic servitude or marital rape, mainly because some abuses that occur in a marriage are often seen as domestic matters and outside interference is often frowned upon because it would be interference in the privacy of the home. Consequently, there is a tendency to deal with this form of slavery privately, outside the courts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 87
- Paragraph text
- The right to non-discrimination on the basis of sex features in numerous international human rights instruments in relation to marriage. For example, articles 1 and 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women call for the elimination of discrimination against women in all matters related to marriage and family relations. Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the right of children to be free from discrimination, including on the grounds of age and sex. In cases where there is a difference between the minimum age for girls and boys to marry, however, the minimum age for girls is always lower than that for boys.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 86
- Paragraph text
- Girls and women who seek to leave servile marriage may be victims of acid attacks or honour-related killings. Acid attacks, which involve the use of sulphuric acid to disfigure or kill, have been reported in Asia, Europe and North and Latin America.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Health
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 85
- Paragraph text
- Domestic violence includes physical and sexual violence, and may be committed by the wife's spouse, in-laws or other family members. According to UNICEF, women and girls who marry while aged under 18 years are less educated, more likely to experience domestic violence and believe that their husbands are fully justified in beating them than their peers who marry later. In Kenya, 36 per cent of girls who married while aged under 18 years believed that a man was sometimes justified in beating his wife, compared to 20 per cent of married women. Girls are also less likely to participate in discussions concerning family planning.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 83
- Paragraph text
- World Health Organization research also shows that women and girls with low levels of education are at a greater risk of violence than better educated and older women. The higher the levels of schooling for girls, the less they are at risk of servile marriage. In the United Republic of Tanzania, women who attend secondary school are 92 per cent less likely to be married before the age of 18 years than women who attend only primary school.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Education
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 82
- Paragraph text
- Girls are taken out of school and forced into servile marriage. The lack of education or limited education seriously harms their opportunities and choices, making them economically dependent on their husbands and vulnerable to poverty if their husbands die or abandon or divorce them. Societies in which servile marriage takes place often value boys more than girls.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 81
- Paragraph text
- Education is considered to be the strongest predictor of the age at which a girl will be married. According to UNICEF, in Nicaragua, 45 per cent of uneducated girls are married before the age 18 of years, compared to 28 per cent of girls having completed primary education, 16 per cent of girls having completed secondary education and 5 per cent of girls having completed higher education. In Mozambique, approximately 60 per cent of uneducated girls are married by the age of 18 years, compared to 10 per cent of girls having completed secondary education and less than 1 per cent of girls having completed higher education.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- In countries with a high incidence of HIV/AIDS, some adult men prefer to marry girls as their virginity and HIV-negative status is assured. Early marriage to older, more sexually experienced men is, however, no guarantee that a girl will not be infected with HIV. Studies in Kenya and Zambia show that married girls are more likely to be HIV-positive than their sexually active unmarried counterparts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 78
- Paragraph text
- According to Save the Children in the 2004 edition of its annual publication, State of the World's Mothers, once born, children of girl brides are twice as likely to die before the age of 1 year as the children of a woman in her twenties. If they survive, the children are more likely than those born to older mothers to have poorer health care and inadequate nutrition as a result of the mother's poor feeding behaviour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 77
- Paragraph text
- The younger the bride, the more likely it is that she will face serious health complications owing to the physical immaturity of her body at the time of childbirth. A girl with underdeveloped physiology risks incurring an obstetric fistula, a rupture of the vagina, bladder and/or rectum during childbirth that causes persistent leakage of urine and faeces. Girls face a greater risk of health problems associated with repeated pregnancies and childbirth. They also have limited access to information concerning their reproductive health and health care.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- A UNICEF study on early marriage indicates that girls under the age of 15 years are five times more likely to die during delivery as a result of haemorrhage, sepsis, preeclampsia or eclampsia and obstructed labour than women between the ages of 20 and 24 years.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- Sexual slavery is a situation in which absolute control over one person is imposed on another, either by the use or threat of force. Servile marriage results in sexual slavery. As mentioned previously, girls in ritual slavery are forced to have sex with the priest who consummates the marriage between the girl and the deity. A ritually enslaved girl may also be forced to have sex with multiple sexual partners who believe that they become cleansed by having sex with her. The girls are also rendered physically weak by the pregnancies, births and, on occasion, abortions that they undergo. As a result of having multiple sexual partners the girls suffer from reproductive tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Unable to leave or seek help, they are often socially marginalized, with few support systems. This contributes to a lack of confidence and low self-esteem, perpetuating subordination.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- The domestic servitude inherent to child marriage disempowers girls by denying them educational opportunities and the chance to form protective networks of friends and peers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- Women and girls in servile marriage are required to perform all domestic household tasks and, in some cases, to work outside the home in shops or on farms and to have sex with their husbands. If they do not perform their duties adequately, they face physical and psychological abuse from their husbands or their husbands' families. In many such cases, the girl or woman is also a victim of marital rape.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- Often overlooked is the psychological pressure placed on the girl or woman because of constant criticism and verbal abuse from her husband or his family, which makes her insecure and submissive. Such abuse is accompanied by the other violations described below.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- If a woman refuses marriage, she can be subject to character assassination or kidnapping by the man or his family to force her into marriage or to rape her. Bride kidnapping, a practice by which a bride is forcefully abducted and married, sometimes occurs in Kyrgyzstan and is often accompanied by physical and sexual violence (CEDAW/C/KGZ/CO/3, paras. 21 and 22). In many cases, girls and women endure years of constant abuse that sometimes leads to death at the hands of their relatives, their husbands or their husbands' families. Girls and women are also encouraged or forced by their husbands or their husbands' families to commit suicide.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Non-consensual marriage is a form of marriage where one or both parties have not consented. The lack of consent is the main principle underlying all forms of servile marriage. In some instances, the law is used to justify non-consensual marriages. For example, to protect the honour of a girl or woman, some countries can compel a rape victim to marry her rapist if the rapist so agrees. In this situation, the rapist is pardoned. Although these marriages purport to be consensual, fear of stigma and family pressure sometimes coerce rape victims into consenting to them (see E/CN.4/2002/83). Recently, the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice reported the case of Amina Filali, a Moroccan woman who committed suicide after allegedly being forced to marry her rapist. Article 475 of the Moroccan Penal Code provides that a kidnapper or seducer of a minor girl may be acquitted of rape if he marries her (A/HRC/20/28/Add.1, para. 24).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- Described below are forms of servile marriage that women and girls experience.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- As with domestic violence, it is difficult to obtain accurate figures of the numbers of girls and women in servile marriage. Statistics for early marriage, however, can be used as an indication. According to UNICEF, adolescent marriages (where one or both spouses are below the age of 19 years) commonly occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In those regions, most marriages take place between the ages of 15 and 18 years. UNICEF suggests that early marriages are often considered to be a way to protect girls, and even sometimes boys, from sexual predation, promiscuity and social ostracism. In some communities, parents perceive girls as wealth.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Adolescents
- Boys
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Other forms of ritual slavery in which a girl is given to a shrine and married to the gods are practised in parts of West Africa. The girl is enslaved to atone for the real or alleged sins of a male relative. There is a belief that gods often punish a person's sin by causing the deaths of family members until the sin is pardoned. Until the early eighteenth century, livestock or other gifts were given to the priests in atonement. As girls could be used as domestic help and as sexual partners, priests began taking young virgins as reparation instead. A girl is expected to serve a priest for a certain period, depending upon the severity of the crime and the policy of the shrine. The girl's family can redeem her after that period, but the priest demands a high price. If the priest dies, the girl becomes the property of his successor. If the girl dies without her family redeeming her, her family is obligated to replace her with another virgin, meaning that the cycle can continue for generations. Enslaved girls and women are forced to live in inhumane conditions. They are expected to work in the fields and the local market and also provide sexual services to the priests. They are beaten into submission if they resist (E/CN.4/2002/83, para. 42).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- There are several practices in which girls are forced into marriage under the guise of religious rites. For example, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has noted the existence in India of devadasi, whereby a girl, usually a Dalit, is forced to marry a deity and forced to have sex with members of the temple (CERD/C/IND/CO/19, para. 18). The Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have addressed the deuki system in Nepal, under which girls may be offered to deities by their families or by wealthy people who buy girls from their parents to be granted wishes or heavenly favours. The girl is then called a deuki and engages in prostitution (CRC/C/15/Add.261, para. 67, and CEDAW/C/NPL/CO/4-5, para. 17).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Harmful Practices
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- As a result of cultural beliefs, girls and women with dual nationality are sometimes abducted by their families from one country and forced to marry men from their parents' country of origin. This has happened in the United Kingdom to women from Asian diaspora communities. The Governments involved have worked through consular assistance and judicial proceedings to provide victims with effective remedies. In 2005, the United Kingdom set up a forced marriage unit under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office to tackle the issue.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Cultural relativism is often given as an excuse for slavery-like violations such as servile marriage and sexual slavery committed against women and girls. Societies that permit servile marriage are based on an overwhelming fear of female sexuality and culturally believe that it should be curtailed and regulated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Conflict and post-conflict situations have also contributed to an increase in servile marriage, given that girls and women recruited or abducted by armed groups have been forced to marry combatants. Armed groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army have been found to force girls into servile marriage in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan (see S/2012/365).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Servile marriage 2012, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- To help to reduce servile marriage, the Government of India launched conditional cash transfer initiatives to provide incentives to families to delay their daughters' marriages. The "Apni beti apna dhan" ("Our daughter, our wealth") programme was established by the local government of Haryana to issue long-term savings bonds redeemable on a girl's eighteenth birthday, provided that she is unmarried.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Girls
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph