Brazil is the 4th country in number of marriages of girls under 18

This Friday (11), celebrates the International Girl’s Day🇧🇷 The date, created by UN in 2011, it was established to mark the fight for girls’ rights, celebrate progress and organize events around the world, promoting gender equality and other important causes, such as the fight against discrimination and child abuse.

Several acts of awareness take place on that day in several states of our country. The main institution leading actions on that day is the Plan International Brazil, a non-governmental organization that has been defending the rights of children and adolescents in Brazil for 20 years. Its objective is to empower communities to take these young people out of vulnerable situations and generate significant changes for these young people.

In 2016, the Organization released relevant data regarding the situation of girls in the country, which had great repercussions. The research showed that, in absolute numbers, Brazil is the fourth country with the highest rate of marriages of girls under 18 years old, behind only India, Bangladesh and Nigeria.

Data were collected by Promundo Institute – another non-governmental organization working towards gender equity and non-violence – showed that 287,000 underage girls were married under the age of 15. THE unicef also reported that, in the last decade, 650 million girls became wives before the age of majority.

THE World Health Organization (WHO) brought data that said that complications in pregnancy and childbirth are among the main causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 years in the world. And 90% of cases are related to early marriages.

The shocking numbers alerted countries around the world – including Brazil – to a dire humanitarian crisis. At the time the studies came out, the press vehicles published real stories of girls who had children very early and the subject, then, became the target of strong campaigns that preached the reversal of these high numbers.

The magazine CLAUDIA published an important article, in 2016, about the common reality of very young brides in northeastern Brazil. One of the interviewees was Ivonete Santos da Silvaonly 14 years old at the time, who lived in Maceió with her husband, Sislânio Silvério, 21 years old, and their daughter Rayslani, who was 1 year old.

In an interview, the teenager said that she shared her time taking care of the house and her daughter and that she still couldn’t answer how she really felt in that position of mother. “I do not know. I’m a bit of a woman, too small, a bit like a child too. I hope my daughter marries late, only 17 years old, and doesn’t cheat on school to learn everything properly, “she said.

The article unraveled six more stories of girls who were mothers and got married extremely early. Among them, only one was studying at the time the article was published.

All the data about the marriages of underage girls in Brazil came to light this week, and serve as a warning for the acts promoted on Dia da Menina. Plan International, for example, is carrying out in Brazil throughout the month of October – and especially on the 11th – the movement #GirlsOccupy🇧🇷 The cause aims to take girls to occupy public and private spaces as a demonstration of their potential, in addition to reiterating the importance of empowering them.

This movement is happening in cities in Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí and São Paulo. More than being aware of the numbers of the problem, it is important to have events like this one so that they increasingly stimulate the search for gender equality in our country.