Colombian Congress votes to end child marriages after 17-year-long campaign

Colombia’s Congress has voted to eradicate the law that allowed child marriages with parental consent after a 17-year campaign against it. This comes after eight failed attempts to pass the bill through the House and Senate.

The new proposal will prohibit the marriage of anyone below 18 years of age and is aimed at protecting the rights of minors. However, Colombian President Gustavo Petro still needs to sign the bill into law.

First presented in 2023, the proposal used the slogan ‘they’re girls, not wives’, which aimed at bringing reform to the existing law that allowed 14-year-old minors to get forced into marriages with parental consent, subjecting young girls to violence and preventing them from getting education and developmental opportunities.

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“We do not want to continue seeing the systematic violence and sexual exploitation of children. Colombia is making history because, for the first time, we have managed to ban child marriage after trying eight times,” said Jennifer Pedraza, congresswoman for the Dignity and Commitment Party and co-author of the bill, after the vote. 

“So it is a great message, not only for Colombia in terms of respect for the rights of boys and girls, but also for the world. Colombian childhood is important, we have to protect it and we have to care for it. So we are very happy that Colombia has just left the shameful list of countries that allow childhood marriage,” she added.

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The previous attempts by the advocacy groups were thwarted by the opposition and Indigenous communities who believed the bill was a threat to tradition and parental rights. According to UNICEF, poverty is the key reason for child marriages in which girls from poor families are married off to a wealthy older partner.

“A lot of the time these girls have no say on entering a relationship and then when they enter it they have even less. Their opinions don’t count, their dreams don’t count and they are viewed as objects,” Marta Royo, executive director of Profamilia, a non-profit organisation promoting reproductive health services, according to a Guardian report.

Once signed into law, Colombia will become one of the 12 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean to have banned child marriages. 

(With inputs from agencies)