Abstract:

Early marriage, commonly referred to as child marriage, is still a prevalent social issue in many countries throughout the world. Millions of girls around the world have been subjected to underage marriage. This phenomenon is the marriage of girls under the age of 18, before they have the physical, emotional, and psychological maturity to make informed decisions about marriage, to shoulder the responsibilities of marriage and family, and to bear children. This problem, which manifests itself repeatedly with social crises, has lifelong detrimental impacts on women, including a lack of education, health risks, emotional and psychological difficulties, low self-esteem, a lack of empowerment, and increased vulnerability to domestic violence. Therefore, the phenomenon of early marriage also involves depriving individuals of their childhood and future. This qualitative research, which was conducted between 2015 and 2018 in the Gaziantep province through in-depth interviews with 25 women between the ages of 18 and 60 who were married under the age of 18, explores the causes of child marriage and its destructive and lifelong physical, emotional and social effects on women who are subjected to this practice. The study finds that many girls are pushed into marriage at a young age due to social, cultural, and economic factors that lead to gender inequality fueled by patriarchal traditions, and that the inconsistency of laws and failures in implementation, as well as an affirmative cultural perspective, make child marriage a difficult problem to solve. The study, demonstrating that child marriage is a form of "violence" against girls, a violation of human and ‘children's rights’, and therefore cannot be accepted as ‘normal’ and is a practice that reinforces the unequal position of women, aims to contribute to the efforts and studies in Turkey and around the world to understand this phenomenon as a problem and to raise awareness for its solution.

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