A/HRC/41/19
Somalia and Yemen, where rates of child marriage were among the highest in the world,
armed, terrorist and transnational criminal groups directly profited from trafficking, with
victims being either abducted or deceived by false promises and ending up enduring sexual
slavery and forced prostitution (S/2018/250, para. 18).
21.
As indicated above, girls and women endure multiple forms of gender-based
violence under the guise of marriage. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the Syrian Arab Republic reported that ISIL fighters had successively forced many
women and girls into marriage, some as many as six or seven times within two years. When
the so-called fighter-husband was killed, ISIL command deliberately waived the Islamic
three-month period of mourning, thus making it possible to pass a woman on to the next
fighter in line. As for the widowed or unmarried women and girls who were unable to stay
with relatives, they were often forced to live in “guest houses” run by Hisbah, where they
were subjected to forced prostitution and sexual exploitation. The monitoring and reporting
mechanism on grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict, which was
established in accordance with Security Council resolution 1612 (2005), noted that girls
who were forcibly married to fighters barely knew their names and were frequently
divorced and abandoned when those fighters moved to other areas or regions. Other
consequences include high numbers of child widows, because of their husbands dying in
conflict. According to Action on Child, Early and Forced Marriage, when the husband dies,
the child widow is left destitute, as there is often no safety net, such as a pension. A child
who has been married to an ISIL or Taliban fighter might even be rejected by their own
family.
22.
In some instances, stigmatization is both a consequence and driving factor. The fear
of retaliation owing to the concept of family honour is often constructed around notions of
female virginity before marriage and sexual fidelity afterwards, and can be compounded by
the presumption of guilt by association facing women and girls who have been forcibly
married. Reports indicate that some women and girls in the Syrian Arab Republic and
Yemen committed suicide after being subjected to sexual violence, because they were
unable to cope with the perceived shame of the rapes and the added pressure by family
members. Many former wives of Al-Shabaab fighters in the coastal regions of Somalia and
Kenya face similar risks of stigmatization and retaliation, including from the public
authorities. As the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted in
its submission, women in this situation are sometimes seen as “enemies of the State” or are
radicalized (S/2018/250, para. 62). In Nigeria and Cameroon, according to the submissions
by Action on Child, Early and Forced Marriage and the National Commission on Human
Rights and Freedoms of Cameroon, the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram were ostracized by
society when returning home, as they had given birth to “children of the enemy”. In the
Central African Republic, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence were forced to
relocate, together with their children, to different districts to escape abuse by their families
(S/2018/250, para. 28). Such stigmatization related to sexual and gender-based violence is
highly damaging to girls and women who have already suffered violation and abuse.
V. Challenges and implementation gaps in addressing child,
early and forced marriage in humanitarian settings
23.
Among the challenges that have been identified in addressing child, early and forced
marriage in humanitarian settings are the impact of the disruption of services, the limited
capacity and resources of actors to address harmful practices and the limited amount of
evidence and data.
1.
Impact of the breakdown of infrastructure on the implementation and
enforcement of legislative and policy measures
24.
In humanitarian settings, even where legislation prohibiting child marriage exists, its
implementation and enforcement may be hampered by the disruption and collapse of public
institutions and services. In their submissions, the United Nations Entity for Gender
7
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