How to Stop Forced Marriage in Africa
According to UNICEF, sub-Saharan Africa will be home to the highest number of child brides in the world by 2050, surpassing South Asia. In Nigeria, for example, where the country’s rate of child marriage has been falling by 1% a year over the past 30 years, its dramatic population growth will mean that an estimated 50 million women (pdf, p.9) in the region’s largest economy will be married before the age of 18.
But ending the practice of child marriage may be easier and cheaper than previously thought.
Giving girls school supplies and economic incentives like goats and chickens drastically reduced their likelihood of being forced into marriage, according to the results of a three-year trial conducted by the Population Council, a nonprofit with offices in the US, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
Read the article “How to Stop Forced Marriage in Africa” on qz.com.
