Women's Human Rights Resources Database

This database lists hundreds of resources -- articles, documents and links -- related to international women's rights law and Canadian women's rights law. Annotations describe the content of each resource. Users can search by keyword and author as well as browse by women's rights topic. Full-text documents or links to full-text documents are provided where available.
Search Results for content type Article categorized with Marriage
Swart, Mia, Hassen, Sabreen , A Comparison between the Position of Child Marriage Victims and Child Soldiers: Towards a Nuanced Approach , 16(2) AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAW JOURNAL, 458-475 (2016)
This paper examines the roles of children affected by both chid marriage and child soldiers, with the goal of highlighting the complexity of child development and ability to consent. The authors differentiate children in the stages of early childhood, adolescence, and ‘on the verge of young adulthood’ for a more nuanced analysis of the legal system’s approach to children. The abuse and human rights violations faced by all children in either of these positions demonstrates the connection between child marriage and child soldiers. In determining the possible culpability of children, the authors explore the question of consent and the extent to which children have voluntarily entered into early marriage or soldiering. They suggest that in certain contexts of a child marriage and child soldiers, older children may be at an age to give valid, voluntary consent and their culpability to crimes should be considered proportionately.
https://heinonline.org/HOL/P, http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1996-2096/2016/v16n2a7

 
Timmerman, Jeff , When Her Feet Touch the Ground: Conflict Between the Roma Familistic Custom of Arranged Juvenile Marriage and Enforcement of International Human Rights Treaties , 13(2) JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW & POLICY, 475-497 (Spring 2004)
This article focuses on the Balkan region (including Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary), explaining that the tradition of Roma juvenile marriage and traditional spousal role expectations (that women are prohibited from further education, restricted to marrying within the group, treated unequally in terms of infidelity and infertility, and forced into marriages arranged by parents) violate human rights of women. It describes how early marriage violates the human rights guaranteed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The author than argues that there is a problem with enforceability because of the host countries' open discrimination against Roma peoples. [Descriptors: Marriage: International - Europe]

 
Toy-Cronin, Bridgette A. , What is Forced Marriage? Towards a Definition of Forced Marriage as a Crime against Humanity , 19(2) COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW, 549-590 (2010)
The article analyzes the crime of forced marriage through studying the events in Democratic Kampuchea, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda. The article also looks at the 2005 Special Court for Sierra Leone (SC-SL), which separated forced marriage as an inhumane act from other crimes against humanity such as sexual slavery. By doing so, the article is able to explain the difficulties SC-SL had in defining forced marriage as a distinct inhumane act. Marriage was only understood and the harm categorized by relying on conjugal gender stereotypes. The article finishes by proposing that a situation qualifies as forced marriage when the involved parties subjectively believe they have been married. This avoids damaging gender stereotypes and accounts for the subjective societal harm the crime has caused.
https://heinonline.org/HOL/P

 
van Coller, Arthur , Child Marriage - Acceptance by Association , 31(3) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW POLICY AND THE FAMILY, 363-376 (2017)
This article argues that the effective elimination of child marriage requires, in part, that the practice be correctly named and defined. The use of the term 'marriage' in 'child marriage' is misleading and inappropriate, because it suggests moral and social approval. A new term 'paedogamy' is proposed to accurately describe the practice of young children forced into marriage. By using paedogamy instead, scholars and organizations can better articulate the sacrificed to autonomy and the problematic lack of valid consent given in ‘child marriages’.
https://heinonline.org/HOL/P

 
Warner, Elizabeth , Behind the Wedding Veil: Child Marriage as a Form of Trafficking in Girls , 12(2) JOURNAL OF GENDER, SOCIAL POLICY & THE LAW, 233-271 (2004).
This article explores child marriage and the international conventions that are violated by the practice (CEDAW, CRC, Marriage Convention, UDHR, ICCPR, ICSCR, Torture Convention, Anti-Trafficking Convention). The prevalence of and reasoning behind child marriage throughout the world is described, as well as a presentation of different nations' domestic laws concerning minimum age of marriage. The author outlines the international human rights instruments that relate to child marriage, explaining how existing human and women's rights conventions fail to remedy the problem. The author argues that child marriage is a form of exploitation of girls as a married girl is essentially a slave, both sexually and through labour, to her husband and his family, and loses the human rights protections guaranteed to children. The article concludes with recommendations for added provisions to human rights conventions as well as suggestions of extra-legal measures that could be undertaken to halt the practice of child marriage.

 
Wing, Adrien Katherine , Polygamy from Southern Africa to Black Britannia to Black America: Global Critical Race Feminism as Legal Reform for the Twenty-first Century , 11(2) JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY LEGAL ISSUES, 811-880 (2001)
The objective of this article is to demarginalize polygamy because the practice is a prevalent and regularized social phenomenon worldwide. Wing discusses polygamy from the Global Critical Race Feminism perspective, a methodology that supposes that scholars "world travelling" must view themselves in the cultural, legal and historical contexts of their subject matter, while identifying how they themselves would be seen by the "other" from that country. Wing's study deconstructs polygamy by focusing on its practice in three regions: southern Africa, Black Britannia, and Black America. She explores the options (or lack of options) available to women where polygamy is the social norm.
https://heinonline.org/HOL/P

 

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