Central Province: 109 Girls Under 15 Years Old Married in First Six Months and 109 Pregnancies Under 18 Years Old in Current Year
The Director General of Women and Family Affairs of the Central Province Governor’s Office announced the marriage of 109 girls under 15 years old in the first half of the current year and 1,109 pregnancies of girls under 18 years old during the current year in the province. He also stated that the number of marriages of girls under 15 years old in the province from 1396 to last year was 1,157 cases. The physical and psychological harms resulting from marriage during childhood inflict irreparable blows on the lives of girls, particularly pregnancies under 18 years old, maternal mortality, depression, and sometimes suicide attempts, along with harms such as divorce, dropping out of school, and the persistence of the cycle of cultural and economic poverty.
According to Hrana news agency, citing Rokna, the Director General of Women and Family Affairs of the Central Province Governor’s Office announced the marriage of 109 girls under 15 years old in the first half of the current year in the province.
Zahra Kasaeipour said: “From 1396 to last year, 1,157 marriages of girls under 15 years old were registered, from 1395 to 1398 approximately 1,055 pregnancies under 18 years old, and in the current year 109 pregnancies under 18 years old have been registered.”
He also announced the identification of 179 child laborers in the province and added: “125 of them are boys and the rest are girls, and out of the total number of child laborers, 141 were identified in Arak and the rest in Saveh.”
Kasaeipour, referring to children referred to welfare services, said: “From 1395 to 1398, a total of 73 children were referred to welfare services, the most common cause of which was emotional violence.”
He noted: “In the current year, 886 school dropouts and 10,537 foreign and migrant children were identified in the province, of which 8,030 foreign and migrant nationals have ID cards and the rest do not.”
The Director General of Women and Family Affairs of the Central Province Governor, considered the high rate of pregnancies among girls under 18 years old in Khondsab and Komijan compared to other cities, the inappropriate process of identifying school dropouts in Khomein and Arak, the existence of child laborers and street children in Arak and Saveh and its increasing trend, the need to increase the quota of support organizations to support pregnant women and malnourished children in need as among the most important challenges facing children and adolescents in the province.
It is worth noting that child marriage or child matrimony in Iran has been increasing in recent years. Child rights activists say this phenomenon will have a negative impact on the health of Iranian families in the future.
The high statistics of marriages of children who marry before reaching intellectual and mental maturity demonstrates the prevalence of this phenomenon in Iran. The age of marriage in Iran is determined based on “sexual maturity,” while according to experts, sexual maturity is only part of the dimensions of complete human maturity. Development, awareness, education, and freedom in choice are the most essential and humanitarian conditions for forming a family.
The physical and psychological harms resulting from child matrimony inflict irreparable blows on the lives of girls, particularly pregnancies under 18 years old, maternal mortality and mortality, depression, and sometimes suicide attempts, along with harms such as divorce, dropping out of school, and the persistence of the cycle of cultural and economic poverty.
Based on published statistics, approximately 95,000 cases of divorce of women under 19 years old were registered between 1390 and 1394, of which approximately 5,760 divorces are related to marriages where the spouses’ age was less than 15 years.
Source: Hrana
