Child marriage
Child marriage Child marriage threatens the lives, well-being and futures of girls around the world. Child is a person who has not completed twenty-one years of age, if a male, and if a female, has not completed eighteen years of age.[1] Marriage is the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman).[2] Child Marriage is defined as a marriage of a girl or boy before the age of 18 and refers to both formal marriages and informal unions in which children under the age of 18 live with a partner as if married. Child marriage affects both girls and boys, but it affects girls disproportionately, especially in South Asia.[3] Validity of Child Marriage A marriage in which either the girl is below 18 years of age, or the boy is below 21 years of age is child marriage. The previous law titled Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 had provisions only for restraining th...