The United Nations has established November 27 as the International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage, creating an annual focal point for governments, advocates and agencies to coordinate pressure and programmes on the issue.
The resolution that created the day was led by Sierra Leone and adopted by the UN General Assembly. Sierra Leone’s First Lady, Fatima Maada Bio, championed the initiative after a call from Bhuwan Ribhu, the founder of the civil society network Just Rights for Children.
The move underlines the scale of the problem the UN says the new day is meant to address. UNICEF estimates roughly 12 million girls worldwide are married before they turn 18 each year, and some 650 million women and girls alive today were married as children.
Sierra Leone hailed the General Assembly’s decision, saying the designation will strengthen efforts around child protection, health and education and would accelerate progress towards ending child marriage. The government framed the resolution as a tool to amplify legal and policy measures aimed at protecting girls.
By establishing a fixed international observance, the UN has given campaigners a recurring date to concentrate advocacy, public education and policy pushes. Observance of the day may help to synchronise national reforms and civil society campaigns, and to keep the issue on international agendas where UNICEF and country governments track progress.
The General Assembly adoption marks a diplomatic victory for Sierra Leone and for the civil society actors who pushed for the day, and sets a new annual marker for measuring whether commitments on ending child, early and forced marriage translate into faster declines in child marriage rates.
