IPPF recognizes and believes that the right to choose to marry and to found and plan a family is implicit in the right of all persons of full age* to marry † and to found a family without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion and, therefore, commits itself to the following:1
7.1 All persons have the right to protection against a requirement to marry without that person’s full, free and informed consent.
7.2 All persons have the right of access to reproductive health care services including those who are infertile, or whose fertility is jeopardized by sexually transmitted infections.
Notes
* A child is defined as a human being below the age of 18 (Convention on the Rights of the Child).
† The betrothal or marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 19 Discrimination Against Women, Article 16.2).
1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Art. 16: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.” International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Art. 23.2: “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized.”
The right can be used to address issues relating to:
- Forced marriage, especially child marriage
- Forced pregnancy, or continuation thereof
- Non-discriminatory access to sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, infertility treatment, and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS
- Forced sterilization
Facts & figures
- Young girls are often pushed into marriage by their families for economic, social and cultural reasons.1
- Social or cultural reasons for early marriage include a desire by elderly parents or grandparents to see young girls settled before they die; fear of pregnancy out of marriage; or a belief that marriage before menstruation begins is particularly sacred.1
- In southern Benin, girls aged 10-13 are often forcibly removed from their families and taken away to be child brides.1
- Girls are often forced to marry men much older than themselves, leaving them particularly vulnerable to an abusive relationship.2
- In Asia and Eastern Europe, girls as young as 13 are trafficked as ‘mail order brides’.3
1 Ouattara, Sen and Thomson in Oxfam (ed) (1998) ‘Forced marriage, forced sex: the perils of childhood for girls’ Gender and Development Vol 6 No. 3 pp28-29
2 UNICEF (1998) Progress of Nations
3 UNICEF in UNFPA (2003) State of World Population p21