A/HRC/4/23 page 9 shall be legally entered into without the full and free consent of both parties, such consent to be expressed by them in person after due publicity and in the presence of the authority competent to solemnize the marriage and of witnesses, as prescribed by law” (art. 1 (1)). Moreover, the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action urges Governments to “[e]nact and strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage is only entered into with the free and full consent of the intending spouses” (para. 274 (e)). Emphasis is on the full and free consent of the parties to the marriage, as also reflected in, inter alia, article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 16 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 20. Moreover, national legislation on marriages also focuses on the equal rights of men and women to marry and to do so legally and of their own free will. Absence of such full and free consent will, in many jurisdictions, constitute a ground to have the marriage declared null and void. In addition, in many jurisdictions, including Afghanistan, Austria, Ghana, Norway and Serbia, forced marriage is considered by the respective criminal codes as a crime in its own right. In other countries, including Algeria, Belarus, Canada, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Mauritius, Moldova and the United Kingdom, despite not having a specific provision criminalizing a forced marriage, an act of forced marriage may be subject to criminal proceedings under other related crimes including trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation, abduction, prostitution and rape. 21. Article 16 (2) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women sets out parameters for national prohibitions of child marriage by recognizing that a marriage of a child should not be permitted nor have legal effect. The Convention on the Rights of the Child contains several articles that are pertinent to the marriage of a child. According to article 3, States parties have a positive obligation to ensure that the best interests of a child are always a primary consideration - beyond the mere protection against discrimination of the girl child. Since children are, by definition, incapable of consent or of exercising the right of refusal, child marriage is forced marriage, and as such violates fundamental human rights standards and must therefore be strictly prohibited. 22. The practice of child marriage of girls is, according to many observers, the socially legitimized institutionalization of sexual abuse and marital rape, sometimes of very young girls,3 which has serious physical, psychological and health consequences for the girls involved. These marriages result in a high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, disabilities such as fistulas, and death as a result of premature childbirth. 23. The 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child requires States parties to prohibit child marriage and to adopt legislation “to specify the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years” (art. 21 (2)). 3 Mariam Ouattara, Purna Sen and Marilyn Thomson, “Forced marriage, forced sex: the perils of childhood for girls”, Gender and Development, vol. 6, No. 3, 1 November 1998, pp. 27-33.