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1 International Labour Organization, Walk Free Foundation and International Organization for Migration (2017) Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage. p.5.2 Ibid.3 The Economist. 2010. Gendercide – The Worldwide War on Baby Girls (4 March 2010).4 United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). 2009. Child Trafficking in East and South-East Asia: Revising the Trend p. 66.5 United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 2015. Child, Early, and Forced Marriage Resource Guide p. 10. 6 Reuters. 2016. “Trafficking of Vietnamese Women for Sex and Marriage Expands Across Region – Expert” (18 May 2016). 7 United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 2015. Child, Early, and Forced Marriage Resource Guide p. 10.8 Ibid, p. 13. 9 The Guardian. 2016. “Weddings from Hell: The Cambodian Brides Trafficked to China” (1 February 2016).10 International Labour Organization, Walk Free Foundation and International Organization for Migration (2017) Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage. p.511 United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 2015. Child, Early, and Forced Marriage Resource Guide p. 9.12 Ibid, p. 9-10.13 Ibid, p. 11.

It is estimated that 37 per cent of those living in forced marriage were married when they were still children.10

Child marriage victims are 96 per cent girls; they frequently results in early pregnancies, violating girls’ human rights, and often deprive them of an education and other opportunities.11

People can be forced, coerced, threatened or tricked into marrying someone without their informed consent.

The majority of victims (8.4 million) are located in Asia Pacific.2

Often women recruit other women or young girls, promising them an opportunity to select a rich husband in another country. Usually women have no choice in their spouse and are instead auctioned off to the

highest bidder. Some think they will marry one person, and then arrive to find they are forced to marry another.

Victims are taken from their homes to a different city, region or country to live with their ‘husbands’. They are then expected or pressured to manage domestic tasks.5 Some are sold into forced sex work.6

Gendercide (killing children based on gender) and other factors have caused serious gender imbalances in some Asian countries. A lack of women and girls has contributed to a trend of bride trafficking and forced marriage across the region.3

Forced marriage often causes girls and women to become victims of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Additionally, young brides are more likely to believe that physical violence is sometimes justified.12

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Forced marriage and child marriage are most likely to occur in rural and poor areas, as well as to girls and women with little or no education.13

Laws that allow for girls to marry at a young age make them particularly vulnerable to being trafficked for forced marriage.4

Victims are also under immense pressure to engage in sexual activities with their ‘husbands’ and are highly vulnerable to abuse because they lack any kind of protection due to their isolation and social pressures.7

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There are around 15.4 million people living in forced marriage today, 13 million of these are women and girls.1

Child, early and forced marriage is widely regarded as a form of slavery and it qualifies as human trafficking if the victim is kidnapped, coerced or tricked, and exploited for sex or forced labour.8

Many women and girls are also tricked into marriage. They think they are being recruited for a job somewhere else, only to be forcibly married and left stranded.9

Some young women enter into contractual marriages voluntarily where they are paid to get married and give birth. However, after giving birth some of these women are forced to leave these children behind and go back to their home country. Others get married to other men. Some women have no freedom of movement or are not even allowed to communication with their families.

Forced MarriageHuman Trafficking

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