explorer wrote: ↑Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:40 pm
Probably the youngest girls to get married in Cambodia are 14, but this is very rare.
There are some 15 year old girls getting married, but not that common. I met a girl 16 and pregnant. She got married at 15. You may meet a few.
Historically a fair few 16 year old girls got married. With many more people getting an education, this occurs less.
Many girls get married soon after they finish their education. Many finish high school at 18. Many who go to university finish at 22. This varies.
This UNICEF blog on Cambodian child brides in Ratanakiri may interest you:
[Abridged version]
March 10, 2017
Girls not brides – ending child marriage in Cambodia
By CHAN Kanha and REAM Rin
Ratanakiri, Cambodia, March 2017 – In a small house in a traditional rural Cambodian village, a teenage girl carries a tiny baby and smiles at the UNICEF team that has come to visit her family.
All seems content in this typical home where 15 year-old Romas Linda lives with her parents and two younger twin sisters. The family resides in a village in Ratanakiri province, located in the north-eastern part of Cambodia.
Despite her young age, Romas shows an intuitive maternal bond to the newly-born infant. This is because the baby boy she dotes on is actually her son – the result of her marriage at the age of 13. Romas comes from the Jorai* ethnic community. She married her husband Sok Chantha two years ago.
This marriage took place before she even reached puberty, when her husband was just 17 years old. Their baby is now six months old.
Romas said the migrant lifestyle of her parents in their search for work was one of the reasons she married so young and abandoned her schooling.
Reflecting on her life, she said: “One day, a friend gave me a phone number and told me that a boy loved me so much.
“I made a call then just to say hello to him. A few days later he came to visit me frequently and we felt really in love and agreed to get married. That time I was about 13 years old.
“I married my husband because I felt bored and stressful when I did not have any one to take care of me. Sometimes when my parents went out I slept only with my two young sisters. Other times when my mother was not in, I went to sleep over at my neighbours’ house”.
In Cambodia, the legal age for marriage without parental consent is 18 and the legal age for marriage with parental consent is 16 for both genders.
However, the traditional practice of marrying off children before they are 18 is still widely practiced especially among ethnic groups and without authorization from the commune – as in Romas’ case.
This influence of community culture and social norms plays a strong role in teenage marriages for both girls and boys in Ratanakiri province.
Marrying at a very early age is equated with girls having value and being ‘beautiful’, ‘good’ and ‘modern’. The community often discriminates against older girls and unmarried women and men tend to view girls over the age of 18 as being too old to marry.
In Cambodia, many girls living in rural areas say they face pressure to quit school to help their own, or their husband’s families with farming or domestic chores. This lifestyle exposes them to a higher risk of complicated pregnancies and sexual assault.
It also has a life-changing impact on their future as they are forced into social isolation, with virtually no opportunities for career and vocational advancement – which passes on poverty to the next generation.
Although the country’s overall fertility rate declined between 2010 and 2014, the adolescent pregnancy rate rose from eight to 12 per cent. Rural girls are also twice as likely to become pregnant.
Research shows that improving the education levels of girls and women contributes to decreased numbers of child marriages and early pregnancy. Unfortunately, education rates are still low among girls and women from ethnic minority communities.
Nationwide, one in three women – aged 15 to 19 – who have never attended school have begun childbearing.
UNICEF is working to deliver activities aimed at reducing child marriage and promoting safe behaviour among adolescents by providing support to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in developing the Provincial Action Plan to Prevent Child Marriage and Teenage Pregnancy for Ratanakiri province. This action plan, which is expected to be finalized during the course of this year, will address both child marriage and teenage pregnancy as two strongly interlinked issues.
This is part of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s commitment to taking action to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against children.
http://unicefcambodia.blogspot.com/2017 ... as-is.html
*Probably Jarai ethnic community
