Needs

Strengthen adherence to existing regulations on child marriage, via clarification of guidelines, institutionalisation of a specialised panel of experts with a social work background who would make a formal assessment of the best interests of the child (according to standard criteria) for each marriage involving a boy or girl below the age of 18. Assign a social worker to each case of early marriage, to follow up until the child reaches 18 years of age. The continuing of education should be a pre-condition for all marriage contracts involving girls below the age of 18. GOJ should undertake a strategically focused advocacy campaign to ensure public awareness of 1) the harm child marriage entails, 2) existing services and resources that could be utilized to address by other means the socio-economic pressures reported to contribute to child marriage, 3)services and support that are available to girls already married to reduce the risks associated with early pregnancy and to promote greater enjoyment of rights such as education. MoSD should examine more carefully the specific relationship between poverty and child marriage in order to increase understanding. With regards to Syrian refugees specifically, GOJ should continue and expand existing efforts to promote knowledge of 1) the requirements for marriage registration in Jordan (with special emphasis on the restrictions on under-18 marriage) 2) the measures that have been introduced to ease the burden of meeting these requirements for Syrian refugees (including the opening of an office of the shari‘a court within Za’atari refugee camp where marriages can be officially registered.)

Main Findings

No significant decline in rates of child marriages registered in the shari‘acourts in Jordan from 2005 to 2013. The percentage of registered child marriages involving Syrian girls was 0.5% in 2011, 1.7% in 2012 and grew to an exponential 7.6 per cent in 2013, which reflects the influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan. Additionally, the prevalence of early marriage among all registered marriages for Syrians increasing from 25 per cent in 2013 to 31.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2014. For Jordanians, Palestinians, and Syrians, the average age of early marriage was 16 years and 3 months. The number of boys married below the age of 18 is very low, comparatively, ranging from 152 in 2010 up to 272 in 2013. Of all Syrian girls who married between the ages of 15 and 17, 16.2 per cent married men who were 15 or more years older than them, compared to 6.3 per cent for Palestinian girls and 7.0 per cent of Jordanian girls who married early. There appeared to be wide acceptance that the practice of early marriage remained an appropriate response to certain “compelling circumstances”. Reasons for early marriage included the alleviation of poverty or the burdens of a large family with many daughters; the provision of 'sutra' (security and protection from hardship) for young girls; marriage serving as a means of escape from an abusive household. Good academic performance proved a disincentive to early marriage, whereas leaving formal education seemed – according to many respondents – a reason to hasten a girl toward marriage. All female respondents – including those who had married early and those whose daughters had married early – said that they did not want their own daughters to marry at an early age. However, it was stated that the decision as to whether a marriage would go ahead lay with the child’s father/male guardian. Impact of the Syrian Crisis: While all Syrian respondents reported that early marriage was a long-accepted social custom in Syria, male respondents indicated that a girl not engaged in education should marry between the ages of 13 and 20. Syrian women who had, themselves, married between the ages of 13 and 17 (8 respondents) said that they felt the appropriate age for a girl to marry was 19 or 20. A lack of knowledge of registration processes in Jordan, coupled with a belief that they would soon return to Syria and a more familiar system had led some Syrians to neglect to properly register their marriages in Jordan. Urgency has undermined the thoroughness of the investigations that Syrian families would normally make into the character, qualifications and family background of potential husbands. Now, inquiries reportedly focus more on immediate needs such as the groom’s ability to provide short-term financial security.