Abstract:

This study aims to contribute to eliminate child marriages through revealing the factors that pave the way for becoming a child bride in Turkey. In order to reflect the actual characteristics of child brides, religious marriages are considered besides the civil marriages. The risk factors for child marriages are analyzed using logistic regression based on the "2008 Turkey Demographic and Health Survey". The results indicate that 3 out of 10 women are child brides and those child marriages vary by urban/rural residence and regions as well as by demographic characteristics of women and marriage formation. The findings also show that familyar-ranged-marriages, religious-only-marriages and other traditional family formation practices are significant factors. Increasing women's educational level to at least high school degree is the foremost action to prevent women from being a child bride. However, since legal-only-arrangements have been insufficient, mental transformation that tolerates child marriages in the society must be changed.

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