Name: Dewi Puspita Sari

NIM: 17020084067

Expository and Argumentative Writing

Child Marriage Should Be Banned

Child marriage is one of ironic phenomenon that very common in the world. Child marriage is a
marriage between two people in which one or both of them are underage. The Universal Declaration of
Human Right said that it is part of the right “free and full” in terms of marriage. However, people do not
recognize that the victim in the early marriage is the woman or girl who forced to marry the man
because many of reasons such as poverty and insecurity. For many girls, they usually do child marriage
in 8 or 9 years old. It is lower age than UNICEF legally age in which 18 years old. According to the UN,
37,000 girls under the age of 18 are married each day1. According to education article, there is fact that
over 60% of women with no education were married before 182. Nonetheless, in developing countries
especially rural areas, parents always do the cultural tradition which their daughter should marry with a
man, so she has a guardian in her life and the husband could protect her. This perspective is totally not
objective because the girl does not have any right to choose whether she wants to marry or not. Finally
woman is always loss from the man or parents. In order to protect the woman from many risks of being
married before her mature age, child marriage should be banned in terms of health risk, deprivation of
childhood and future, and domestic violence.

Sexual harassment and health risk are the main reasons why child marriage should be banned in
every country in the world. Sexual harassment is an action related to sex which is unwanted or pressure.
People who believe child marriage is allowed usually argue that their child will safe because there is a
new guardian which is the husband. This perspective is totally wrong because avoiding sex harassment
by marry off children with older man does not guarantee the children could be protected. Children who
are marry off does not have time to learn about sex education such as the information or knowledge
how to practice safer sexual with partners. According to UNICEF article, there are many cases of abuse in
child marriage and it usually done by their husband such as from Egypt there is 29% of married
adolescent have been beaten by their husband and these adolescent 41% have been beaten during
pregnancy3. On the other hand, the womb of girl which has child marriage is not mature enough to
pregnancies and it makes number of dying mom is getting higher than before. Girls aged 15-19 give birth
to million babies a year and less of them giving birth in good hospital or professional midwife. As the
result, according to health and demography survey 2012 on Tempo article, number of dying mom is

1
https://iwhc.org/resources/facts-child-marriage/ (access on 10/5/2019 at 7:36 A.M.)
2
https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/education/ (access on 21/5/2019 at 12:59 P.M.)
3
https://www.unicef.org/newsline/01pr21.htm (access on 21/5/2019 at 12:12 P.M.)
increasing to 359 from 100 thousand giving birth in Indonesia4. That is a large number of dying in such
developing country. So that is why the child marriage should not be allowed because of this reason.

Human right is the most important aspect in term of this issue which has two argues of them.
One of side believe that it is part of person’s human right for choosing their life whether the children
want to marry or not and they also state that children who are marry in young age will free from
responsibilities to their parents. It is true that it part of human right in term of “free and full” of their life
but this is the reason why child marriage should be banned. The facts tell that child marriage take
children’s childhood and education so it should be stopped. Childhood and education is also part of
human right which is very important to have for every child in the world because it could give significant
contribution to their country. When children miss out their education because they are forced into
marriage, their family and country will lose their contribution, economic and social5. School can be the
powerful tools to prevent child marriage phenomenon bigger in the world. School experience could
support the perception that girls are still children and they are not suitable age to marry6. Children who
have been married get new responsibilities which are as a wife and also mother in their house. They
should take care all of them in the house in terms of cleaning, washing, cooking, caring babies, and etc.
so the child marriage should not exist in the world to save children childhood and education in the
world.

Domestic violence cannot be avoided to child marriage if it still going on several countries and it
still believed to help children because of new guardian who is the man chosen by family. It is makes
sense if traditional people said that there is a replacement for father who take care their children but
this action lead the children to domestic violence which can be done by their husband. A study of
Jordan, published in 2000, found that 26% of reported cases of domestic violence were committed
against wives under 187. Selfishness often occurs in child marriage because of the unstable emotion
either from the husband or wife. This problem happens because of child marriage which makes the
maturity and ability to solve problem of the children going slowly. As the result there are many of
domestic violence which cannot be avoided by the children. This is an ironic phenomenon that should
be stopped as soon as possible. So that is why child marriage should not be allowed or law that prohibits
child marriage should be strengthened.

Since there are many of bad impacts caused by child marriage, it should be better if every
country in the world make marriage law more strong and make certain punishment for every person
who broke it for their own profit. Although tradition is good to be preserve but if it harms other people
it should be revised or changed for better condition in the future. Children especially young children
should not be forced to marry because of poverty or parents’ demand. They should experience
education, childhood, friendship, working, and etc. Their Human right, secure, and health should be the
important reason why child marriage should be forbidden.

4
https://nasional.tempo.co/read/516502/angka-kematian-ibu-meningkat-tajam-dalam-5-tahun (access on
21/5/2019 at 12:26 P.M.)
5
https://theirworld.org/explainers/child-marriage (access on 21/5/2019 at 12:45 P.M.)
6
https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/education/ (access on 21/5/2019 at 12:51 P.M.)
7
https://www.unicef.org/newsline/01pr21.htm (access on 21/5/2019 at 14:15 P.M.)