Understanding and Ending Child Marriage

Despite substantial progress over the last two decades, girls still have on average lower levels of educational attainment than boys in West and Central Africa. This is in part because every day, close to 6,000 girls in the region (2.1 million girls annually) are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Girls’ educational attainment and child marriage are closely linked. Ending child marriage would improve girls’ educational attainment, and conversely, improving girls’ educational attainment would help reduce child marriage. This is why enabling adolescent girls to remain in school at the secondary level is one of the best ways to end child marriage, and ending child marriage is similarly essential to enable girls to remain in secondary school.

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