Child, Early and Forced Marriage Legislation in 37 Asia-Pacific Countries

B: 123 Child, early and forced marriage legislation in 37 Asia-Pacific countries © Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and World Health Organization (WHO), 2016 The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Inter-Parliamentary Union or the World Health Organization. [...] During the discussions at the seminar, parliamentarians underlined the importance of legislation This paper provides an overview of how the laws of 37 in fighting the practice of CEFM, placing their focus on an countries in the Asia-Pacific region1 address the issue of CEFM, analysis of what laws have been adopted in the region and highlighting contradictions between different legislative tools in [...] Among these elements, of interconnected rights, including the right to equality on setting the legal age of marriage at 18, for boys and girls, is grounds of sex and age, the right to freely consent to marriage one of the first elements to be addressed by countries in the and found a family, the right to life, the right to the highest Asia-Pacific region. [...] The source for data on child marriage rates, as reported in The state of the world’s children 2015, is the above- The conclusions of the seminar were synthetized into the mentioned UNICEF global database (12). [...] The citizens for the registration of the marriage contract in the official of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties marriage deed by the respective office and prepared in three before the law.” copies.