[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 12, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7409-S7411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CHILD MARRIAGE PREVENTION AND PROTECTION ACT OF 2006

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to announce that tomorrow I 
will introduce the Child Marriage Protection Act of 2006 which is 
cosponsored by Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. I have believed for a 
long period of time that one of the best predictors of how a nation 
will develop economically can be found in the answer to one question: 
How does that nation treat its women? If women are treated as property 
or slaves without rights or opportunities, the country's prospect for 
economic advancement will be low. But if women have the opportunity to 
advance and prosper, so will their nation.
  The untapped economic and educational potential of girls and women in 
many developing nations represents an enormous loss to those societies. 
If women play such a key role in economic development, then we have to 
start with an even more basic question: How does a country treat its 
daughters? Girls' educational opportunities and access to health care 
are key variables in this equation.
  The issue of child marriage is another important, but often 
unrecognized, element that significantly affects access to education 
and dramatically shapes the lives of girls and women in many developing 
countries. That is why Senator Hagel and I will be introducing this 
bill.
  Child marriage is dangerous to the health of girls and young women 
and their children, detrimental to economic progress, illegal in most 
countries, and yet common in many parts of the world. In some 
countries, girls as young as 7 or 8 years old are often married.
  This last week's New York Times Sunday magazine had a pictorial 
display of some of these child marriages around the world. It was 
heartbreaking to see girls who would be in the second and third grade 
in the United States of America being claimed as wives by these older 
men.
  Early marriage also carries with it serious health risks. In 
developing countries, girls aged 10 to 14 who become pregnant are five 
times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than women who are 
20 years to 24 years of age. Their children suffer from high mortality 
rates as well.
  In countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS, child marriage is itself a 
risk

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factor: Girls who are married are at a greater risk of HIV/AIDS than 
unmarried girls. This is one of the many sad ironies of this practice. 
Parents may believe that earlier marriage will protect their daughters; 
instead, it places them in greater danger.
  Adolescent mothers in developing countries are also at high risk for 
a condition known as obstetric fistula. This is a medical condition 
which has virtually disappeared in developed countries around the 
world. It occurs most often when a woman is trapped in prolonged, 
obstructed labor without medical care. In nearly every case, the baby 
in such circumstances is stillborn. Women and girls who survive the 
ordeal of prolonged labor may be virtually ripped apart physically in 
the process.
  A fistula is an open hole that is created during labor that does not 
heal. This condition may leave its sufferers unable to control their 
bowels or bladder. It can be as debilitating socially as it is 
physically. These girls and women are often abandoned by the husbands 
who married them at such an early age and impregnated them, and they 
are shunned by their communities and their families because of this 
terrible physical condition.
  Last December, I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo with 
Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. We went to the town of Goma, and in 
this town of Goma, we visited a hospital known as the Docs Hospital.
  The Docs Hospital is kept open by the charity and giving of many 
churches around the world and in the United States. They have a 
surgical room which is one of the most professional you can imagine in 
that part of Africa, funded by the United Nations. Almost all of their 
work is on this condition of obstetric fistula. Young girls pregnant 
too soon, subjected to prolonged labor as a result, have this condition 
which haunts them. Girls who are the victims of sexual assault face the 
same possibility. Then, after they have been shunned by the families 
and their tribes, they sometimes walk for hundreds of miles to get to 
this tiny hospital in Goma.
  As Senator Brownback and I approached this hospital, we saw these 
women lined up sitting in the dirt. They stood as soon as they saw our 
White faces and broke into songs of greeting, as one often finds in 
Africa. We looked at the long line of women waiting for their chance 
for surgery. When we talked to the surgeon, he said some of them will 
wait for months, and if they are lucky enough to have the surgery, they 
convalesce two to a bed in this crowded hospital ward. But the surgeon 
went on to tell us that even one surgery is not enough for many of 
these women. There are some women who have waited years, with repeated 
surgeries to try to correct this problem, a problem that would have 
been avoided for many of these women had they not been exploited at an 
early age and if they had not experienced pregnancies which they were 
not physically prepared to deal with or devastating sexual assaults.
  We need to do more to help women and girls who are suffering from 
this condition, but we also need to do everything we can to prevent 
it--through access to family planning and medical care and encouraging 
communities to recognize the true social costs of child marriage. That 
is one of the goals of our legislation.
  We are not trying to dictate to other countries what their laws will 
be. Child marriage, as I said earlier, is already illegal in most 
nations, and we are not trying to force our will on unwilling 
countries. But we are trying to promote change through community-based 
organizations that help local leaders and parents recognize the costs 
and horrors of child marriage.

  In addition to the often devastating health consequences of early 
marriage, girls who are married are often denied opportunities to go to 
school. Girls' education is increasingly recognized as the critical 
element in economic growth and development. That is why it has been 
added as one of the criteria for countries to qualify for assistance 
through the multibillion-dollar program, the Millennium Challenge 
Account.
  U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan has said that ``educating girls is not an 
option, it is a necessity.'' He is right. Girls' education is a 
recognized cornerstone of development, but 60 million girls in the 
world are denied access even to the most basic education. Others may 
start school but are far less likely to complete school than their 
brothers because of economic realities and the possibility of child 
marriage. Early marriage, as I said, is one of the reasons. Engagements 
and weddings frequently signal the end of school for the 10- or 11-
year-old bride.
  Lack of education has an enormous impact on the health, economic 
opportunity, and security of a nation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, children 
whose mothers have 7 years of education are twice as likely to see 
their fifth birthday as children of uneducated mothers. The children of 
mothers who attended school are also far more likely to attend school 
themselves. Just as early marriage helps to sustain cycles of poverty, 
education can break those cycles.
  Our foreign assistance programs need to address the ways in which 
these issues are linked. The Child Marriage Prevention and Protection 
Act will, No. 1, require the State Department and USAID to create a 
comprehensive strategy to address child marriage as part of the U.S. 
development agenda; No. 2, require incorporation of this important 
issue within the annual State Department Country Reports on Human 
Rights Practices; No. 3, help countries enforce their existing child 
marriage laws; and No. 4, authorize $60 million over 3 years, starting 
with $15 million in the first year, as part of an integrated community-
based approach to promote and support girls' education, health care, 
and opportunities.
  Child marriage is part of a complex matrix of issues and attitudes. 
Last Sunday's New York Times, as I mentioned, described the situation 
in Afghanistan, and here is what they wrote:

       Rather than a willing union between a man and a woman, 
     marriage is frequently a transaction among families, and the 
     younger the bride, the higher the price she may fetch.

  The Times article stated:

       Afghanistan is not alone in this predilection toward early 
     wedlock. Globally, the number of child brides is hard to 
     tabulate; they live mostly in places where births, deaths and 
     human milestones go unrecorded. But there are estimates. 
     About 1 in 7 girls in the developing world (excluding China) 
     gets married before her 15th birthday--

  One in seven--

     according to analyses done by the Population Council, an 
     international research group . . . Tens of millions of girls 
     are having babies before their bodies are mature enough, 
     increasing the likelihood of death from hemorrhaging, 
     obstructed labor and other complications.

  This article described one such wedding: a 13-year-old whose marriage 
was arranged to pay off a gambling debt.
  The story also described the engagement of an 11-year-old girl to a 
40-year-old man. They showed the photo. It was horrifying to think 
about that little girl, who was quoted in the story as saying she 
really didn't know this man. The girl in question said she had hoped to 
become a teacher. Instead, she will become an 11-year-old bride--one 
more girl in a faraway place in the world who has lost her chance for 
the future.
  Child marriage is most common in the rural areas in the poorest 
countries. This practice perpetuates poverty.
  Charlotte Ponticelli, who was then the senior coordinator for 
international women's issues for the State Department, laid out the 
case clearly. Ms. Ponticelli stated:

       It is unconscionable that in the 21st century girls as 
     young as 7 or 8 can be sold as brides. There is no denying 
     extreme poverty is the driving factor that has enabled the 
     practice to continue, even in countries where it has been 
     outlawed . . . We need to be shining the spotlight on early 
     marriage and its underlying causes . . . We must continue to 
     do everything we can to ensure that girls have every 
     opportunity to become agents of change and to expand the 
     ``realm of what is possible'' for their societies and the 
     world at large.

  The legislation Senator Hagel and I will introduce is designed to 
support community-based efforts to support girls' education, discourage 
early marriage, and assist young girls and women already in marriage.
  We invite our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join this 
bipartisan bill. Parents should never feel that marriage of their 11-
year-old daughter is the best option for themselves or their children. 
With a little help from America and other countries around the world, 
perhaps we can make this a better choice for the daughters, the 
families, their nation, and the world.

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