Child bride, a story that never ends: A look at experiences of Iranian women

Abstract

Child marriage is one of the issues that deprive many young girls of their basic rights and lives. The present study aimed to explore Iranian child brides’ experiences of the consequences of early marriage. The participants were women living in Tehran who had married at the age of 14–18 years. The analysis of the participants’ experiences revealed four main themes, including ‘underlying causes of early marriages’, ‘concerns and negative feelings’, ‘exposure to violence’, and ‘consequences of early marriages’. Awareness of these challenges can provide useful insights to be used by social workers and policymakers to further support these women.

Socio-ecological factors of girl child marriage: a meta-synthesis of qualitative research

“…A total of 34 studies were identified in the current review. In total, 14 of the included articles had been conducted in the Middle East [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], 9 in Africa [50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58], 8 in South Asia [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66], 2 in Europe [8,67],1 in the United States [68], and 1 each in Ethiopia and India [69]. The number of participants ranged from 8 to 300 people.…”

“…Sometimes this relationship is influenced by parental concerns. Families concerned about their child engaging in premarital sex may consent to the marriage of their daughters at a young age [8,46,49,54,66]. Sometimes, the parent-child relationship is influenced by the parents' irresponsibility [50,59,61], incompatibility [48], and ignorance of the child's interests [55].…”

“…If children lose the support of their parents due to reasons such as the death of their parents, divorce, addiction, or violence, they may prefer to marry at a young age, or their parents may consent to their marriage due to behavioral indecisiveness. said one of the girls [48,49]. One of the girls said, "I was thinking, 'God, can I get married one day and be free from this family?"…”