Investigating Underage Girls' Marriage in Underprivileged Egypt

This essay examines the prevalent social issue of underage girl marriage in underprivileged areas of Egypt, focusing on the root causes and devastating consequences. The paper highlights the high rates of child marriage, particularly in rural areas, and the role of poverty, cultural norms, and lack of governmental action. It explores the practice of 'temporary marriages' and the involvement of marriage brokers and religious leaders. The essay analyzes the effects of child marriage, including health issues, lack of education, and abuse. It also critiques the absence of effective policies and the influence of media. Based on a literature review and the author's experience, the paper offers recommendations for addressing the issue, including poverty alleviation, educational initiatives, and legal reforms. The essay provides a comprehensive overview of the problem and suggests potential solutions to reduce the incidence of underage marriage in Egypt.

Professor Joan Dassin
Student: Samah Mansur
The problem of underage girl's marriage in underprivileged areas of Egypt
Introduction
In Egypt, child marriage is a widespread social phenomenon, which mainly
affects girls living in poorer rural areas, and is becoming more prevalent in urban areas,
including Upper Egypt (United Nations, 2012). Seventeen percent of girls are married
before their eighteenth birthday (United Nations, 2012). Wealthy men from Egypt, and
the Arab region, including the Gulf, frequently travel to Egypt to purchase “temporary
marriages and tourism marriages” with underage Egyptian girls, including in some cases
girls who are under the age of 14 years (The Protection Project, 2011). These marriages
are often facilitated by the girl’s parents and through marriage brokers, sheikhs, lawyers,
community leaders and Ma’azoons (authorized marriage ‘sheikhs’) who take bribes for
registering marriages of underage girls (NCCM, 2012).
In 2008, the Egyptian government issued a law to determine the legal age for
marriage is eighteen, and to criminalize the marriage under this age. As a result, the
government bans registration of marriage between couples under this age (Nour, 2009).
However, many families in rural areas accept unregistered marriage until the girls turns
eighteen and many religious leaders try to find leeway around the law for underage
couples’ marriages. Some religious leaders change the date of birth or use unofficial
documents in the marriage certificate ( Nour, 2009).
Child marriage is common in poor and underprivileged areas including Assuit,
Sohag, Fayoum, and areas with strong tribal systems such as New Village, and the Sinai
Peninsula, where hundreds of Bedouin tribes do engage in this practice on young girls.
Furthermore, child marriage can be found in big cities such as Alexandria, Giza and
including the country’s capital, Cairo. According to a study conducted in rural
communities of Egypt, 36 % of married women are married under the age of sexteen
(UNICEF, 2005). In some districts such as El Hawamdia and Badrashen, around 45 -
50% of young girls are forced by family members, community members, and religious
leaders to marry rich older men for money before their eighteenth birthday (NCCM,
2012). These marriages, which are close to prostitution, can last for 5 days, 2 days or
even an hour (NCCM, 2012). As a result, these girls are abandoned and left either
pregnant, taken by force to serve as maids in Egyptian homes and/or the Gulf in abusive
settings where they are malnourished and beaten or even sexually abused by other
members of the husband’s family; abortions that may lead to death or hysterectomy; birth

of children with no father and hence no national identity nor birth certificate (United
Nations, 2012).
According to a study conducted by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood
(NCCM) on underage girls’ marriage in Egypt, the main reasons for this phenomena
could can be summarized as follows: poverty, widespread ignorance and high illiteracy
rates among families;, lack of knowledge of dangers and negative consequences of
underage marriage;, and lack of securing protection for victims. Extreme poverty is a
result of lack of good governance, lack of other economic opportunities and high
perception of corruption, which leads parents to arrange marriage for their daughters to
relieve themselves from financial burdens. In these contexts, marriage can literally mean
one fewer mouth to feed. In addition, the girl’s family receives a ‘bride price’ of money
or livestock from the husband, so marriage also becomes a way of bringing much needed
resources into the family. Traditionally, the culture of early marriages had started in the
sixteenth century for several reasons such as providing girls with physical and financial
security, to prevent them from losing their virginity outside of marriage, and to prevent
them from having a sexual relationship before marriage (Abdelgabar, 2009).
Issues of underage girls’ marriage are not prioritized in the agenda of the agenda
of the Egyptian government, numerous of Non-governmental Organizations or human
rights organizations, political parties, law enforcement organizations, media, and
religious institutions (United Nations, 2012). As a result, there is lack of information
regarding the gravity of such behavior, including its consequences for the girls who are
involved. And since the content of other related mass media is monopolized by producers
from the Gulf area, the media set by them plays a large part in the negative dissemination
of the phenomena of early marriages, girls working as housemaids, and ridiculing and
minimizing the extent by which these girls are subject to the most horrendous forms of
violence and exploitation (United Nations, 2012).
In light of the above, femalegirls’ victims in rural areas face many obstacles in
their access to services, including health services such as proper clinical care or even
hospital care when required (NCCM, 2012). Additionally, these girls often have no
access to important resources, such as legal assistance, vocational training, financial
assistance (e.g. micro and small loans for self-employment, postpaid sales opportunities,
working from home opportunities, etc.), other employment opportunities, and reading and
writing and informal education outlets which might help to empower them or improve
their economic and social situation (NCCM, 2012).
In this context, this paper will analyze the current situation of underage girl's
marriage in poor and underprivileged areas of Egypt. It will highlight the root causes and
effects of this phenomenon based on a literature review and my experience as a
development practitioner for more than 12 years in Egypt, eight years of which was
mainly focused on fighting violence against women and gender issues. The paper will

criticize and tackle the absence of governmental and non-governmental policies regarding
the underage girls’ marriage, the poverty plague, and the traditional-social and cultural
norms in Egypt. In addition, it will demonstrate the consequences of this issue and
propose recommendations to reduce the underage girl’s marriage phenomenon.
References
The United Nations. (2012). Trafficking in women and Girls Report of the Secretary-
General. Retrieved
fromhttp://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/67/170&referer=/english/
&Lang=A
The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood- NCCM. (2012) Study on Young
and Underage Girls in Egypt. Retrieved from
http://www.child-trafficking.org/sites/default/files/annual%20report%205.pdf
Abdelgabar, Adel (2009). Child Marriage between culture and religion. Retrieved from
http://www.feqhup.com/uploads/1366578547851.pdf
Namoro, S., & Roushdy, R. (2009). Intrahousehold resource allocation in Egypt: women
empowerment and investment in children. Middle East Development Journal.
Nour, N. M. (2009). Child marriage: a silent health and human rights issue. Retrieved
from http://www.khubmarriage18.org/sites/default/files/27.pdf
The Protection Project. (2011). A Human Rights Report on Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children. Retrieved from http://www.protectionproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/09/Egypt.pdf
UNICEF. (2005). Early marriage a harmful traditional practice a statistical exploration
2005. Unicef. Retrived from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FOn-
h6oSVQwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=early+marriage+Egypt&ots=SuMC73pmXs&sig=qc
JDwXdxkGDDJBUQzdX-TgsOmZQ#v=onepage&q=early%20marriage
%20Egypt&f=false
Samah,
Much better. Your focus is now clear. You may still have a challenge finding sources
but you have identified the problem you want to research. As you work on your literature
review, you will also now need to introduce the most relevant concepts with which to
frame your study.

SCORE: 8