Stages of Development: Marriage of Girls and Teens as an International Human Rights Issue

In order to develop relevant and culturally appropriate international strategies for child marriage, the author argues that diverse socio-economic conditions and the cultural specificity of childhood and adolescence need to be examined. The author discusses the problem of uniformly conceptualizing all persons under age 18 as "children", as constructions of childhood vary across cultures. She examines how banning child marriage could exacerbate the underlying socio-economic problems that lead to child marriage in the first place. The author promotes the examination of particular consequences of child marriage to women and girls in specific contexts as essential for international human rights analysis of early marriage. [Descriptors: Marriage, International]