Early Marriage in Gaza

Many parents spend their time thinking about how to get rid of the burden of having more than one daughter. Therefore, they resort to early marriage, giving no consideration whatsoever to the basic requirements of marriage, not thinking how much weight will fall upon their daughter's shoulders from an early age and how this will lead her towards a bleak life.

Is early marriage a sensible solution?

There’s a girl named Khadija*. Now, Khadija was sixteen years old, with only one thing on her mind: how to sneak outside to play with the other children. This did not last long, as her family forced her to marry the first man who knocked on their door.

Shortly after, Khadija was pregnant with his child. However, before any signs of pregnancy even showed, she found herself in court signing divorce papers. But Khadija could not complete her education as a divorced young woman, which is considered a lifelong stigma in the eyes of society. Moreover, Khadija’s parents did not allow her to pursue any career that did not require formal education.

This story is not the first nor last of its kind. Female students frequently drop out of school because they get engaged, which has increased significantly in recent years. In the Gaza Strip, most marriages ending in divorce are early marriages. 

In the Gaza Strip, the early marriage rate peaked at 42%, and in Hebron governorate at 38%, with the lowest rate being in Jericho and the Jordan Valley at 1%.

After human rights and women's organizations issued this concerning report, it became necessary to identify why families pushed their daughters to marriage at such an early age.

The research began in the Gaza Strip. One reason parents resort to early marriage is the high rates of extreme poverty, which is attributed to the ongoing siege. Parents believed it would ease their financial burden. But marrying girls off often worsened the problem. Many of these troubled marriages end in divorce, forcing the young mother and her children to move back in with her parents.

Early marriage is one of the biggest problems women are still facing and trying hard to overcome; it plays a major role in depriving girls of their childhoods and education and forcing them to strive for society's approval through compliance. Human rights organizations recognize every person below the age of sixteen as a child with the right to live a natural childhood.