Editorial, EL ESPECTADOR, November 15, 2024
https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/editorial/son-ninas-no-esposas-pero-la-lucha-continua/
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Finally, by acclamation, Colombia’s Congress has prohibited the marriage of children. That was done through a bill entitled “They are little girls, not wives”, and it had the support of all the parties: the majority, the independents, and the opposition. Nevertheless, they shouldn’t be taking too much credit. It is the ninth time the bill has come before the Congress. On all the previous occasions, the Members of Congress invented obstacles or made it clear that they didn’t care about the subject, which produced a peculiar situation, since Colombia, in spite of its promise to protect young girls and adolescents, was allowing 14-year-old girls to marry. This new law is a good first step, but there’s a lot missing in terms of sex education, empowerment, administration of justice, and some cultural conversations.
The situation is terrible. Colombia’s existing Civil Code has permitted girls and adolescents 14 years old to marry, in spite of the fact that it is called child marriage and there is an international movement to prohibit it. Culturally, in Colombia it has been normalized for girls and adolescents to marry men who are much older, which leads to countless abuses and to cutting short any plans for their future lives. There are even families that still see the marriage of their young girls as a way of improving their economic condition. The struggle, in that sense, has barely begun.
The data tell the story. According to UNICEF, 198 minors married in Colombia. Our country is 20th in the world list of marriages of girls and adolescents younger that 15 years old; it is 10th in the worldwide number of marriages of youngsters aged under 18. Of the young girls that married, 73.4% are married to a man at least 20 years older. One-third of the girls in indigenous communities marry men that may actually be triple their age.
On that subject, the debate in Congress served to show how much we are lacking. Senator Martha Peralta, of MAIS (Indigenous and Social Alternative Movement), stated that, “when I was born, my mother was 15 years old, and my father was 63”. She explained, “This bill affects me culturally. I come from a culture, from a people, where we are considered women when we have our first period. This is something that gives us an opportunity to plan together, to have a dialog, so that a strategy for prevention could come from our people, from our ways of thinking, from our language, our ways and our customs, and where the prevention policy could be taught in the indigenous schools and in our language. It has not been easy for me, even in my own community, to talk about this with my authorities and make it understood that these are little girls.” Here we see that the root of the problem continues to be cultural, whether it’s in indigenous communities or in the rest of the country, and that the idea that young girls can marry continues to be widespread. We have to fight this.
Prohibition is not sufficient. We need an ambitious sex education project, with cultural conversations and accompaniment. Colombia continues to be a country that is unfriendly to young girls and boys; if the legal system is constrained, and if there are no funds, little will be changed in practice. We have to get this underway and keep going.