Child Marriage in Georgia (Overview)
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Recommendations
• Set 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage.
Exceptions should only be permitted in cases of
pregnancy, and only if the would-be spouse has
reached the age of 16.
• Conduct a comprehensive quantitative and
qualitative research study into the issue of child
marriage and its consequences. Information that
is representative of the country as a whole is
indispensable for the development of policy and
intervention strategies.
• Integrate the issue of early marriage into the
national policies and action plans related to
gender equality and youth development, to
ensure the implementation of international and
national instruments related to children’s and
women’s rights in Georgia.
• Organise a nationwide campaign to raise
awareness about the issue of child marriage and
its adverse manifestations. In particular, such
a campaign should focus on the most affected
areas of the country where there are higher
rates of child marriage, and abortion, among
girls under the age of 18. Partner with UNFPA
offices in neighbouring countries to conduct
such campaigns among the ethnic minority
groups, using materials in local languages that
are culturally and socially appropriate.
• The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia
should develop comprehensive ‘reproductive
health and rights’ education lessons appropriate
to the cultural context and the students’ ages, and
introduce these into the school curriculum. In
addition, special training programmes should be
provided for teachers. The training programmes
should include modules on gender equality and
girls’ rights to education and family planning.
• Provide training on girls’ rights and gender
equality to primary healthcare and reproductive
healthcare providers to enable them to provide
counselling to mothers of adolescent girls, and
introduce youth-friendly reproductive health
services at the primary healthcare level.
• Adopt effective initiatives to integrate ethnic
minority communities into the wider society.
Legal and national context
Georgia ratified the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1994. In theory,
these international initiatives, along with national
legislation – namely, the Civil Code, Criminal Code,
and the Law on Elimination of Domestic Violence,
Protection, and Assistance of Domestic Violence
Victims (2006) – should ensure the protection of
children’s rights. In practice, as the interviews carried
out for this study revealed, the lack of implementation
mechanisms, strategies, and monitoring mean that
these instruments do not function effectively.
In addition, there are exceptions and inconsistencies
in the legislation that make it problematic and
ineffective. For instance, according to the Civil
Code, an individual is legally considered a child until
the age of 18. However, there are two exceptions
by which someone ceases, legally, to be a child and
becomes an adult: if she or he gets married at the age
of 16, or has to lead a specific enterprise.
Experts and research participants interviewed for this
study noted that the issue of early marriage is not
taken seriously at either the state or the societal level.
In addition, child marriage is not currently a priority
for either child rights or women’s rights organizations.
Child marriage is addressed by a few organisations only
as it relates to other issues. For example, experts noted
that women’s organisations working on domestic
violence may address early marriage indirectly while
working with domestic violence victims.
Georgia has ratified the CRC. This
makes the government responsible. Even if
the national legislation was not adequate,
the CRC is more important, and we should
refer to it. In the national legislation, the
minimum age for marriage is 18, but there
are exceptions when 16 is the age one can
marry. This is inadequate because a 16-year-
old child becomes ‘emancipated’. This
implies that the child acquires the rights and
responsibilities of an adult.
(Expert)
In the children’s welfare strategy, this
problem is not even … mentioned. Nobody
talks about this problem. They talk about
children’s poverty, street children, etc., but
from the age of 16, if a girl is married, she
is not considered a child.
(Expert)