Around quarter of all illegal under-age marriages occur in West and Central Africa, a children’s charity says.
The number of girls married illegally around the world stands at about 7.5 million, a Save the Children study conducted in collaboration with the World Bank, has found.
The study tells the stories of 12-year-olds in Senegal and 15-year-olds in Sierra Leone who are forced to marry.
It reports that the girls tend to fall pregnant quickly and drop out of school.
Some of the young brides come from families where one or both of the parents have died. They are then married off to people who can support them.
Save the Children reports that African countries with particularly high rates of illegal marriages are Niger, the Central African Republic and Chad.
The charity calls for all countries that haven’t yet done so to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage.
But it says implementing the law is often challenging, so this is just a first step.
