Canada has made ending child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) a foreign policy and development priority. CEFM has profound and far-reaching consequences around the world.
The Government of Canada has played an important role in bringing global attention and action to ending this harmful practice. This includes having helped establish, in 2011, the International Day of the Girl Child, which had CEFM as its theme in its first year, and working closely with countries with a high prevalence of CEFM to develop resolutions on CEFM at the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Canada is intensifying programming efforts to end CEFM. Since 2013, Canada has announced almost $69 million in support of new targeted programming to address the causes and consequences of CEFM, including support to Canadian and international civil society partners, UNICEF and now the UNFPA. As well, several Canadian international development assistance programs address CEFM, focusing on health, poverty alleviation and education among other issues.
Canada’s work on CEFM also intersects with the federal government’s flagship development priority—maternal, newborn and child health. In the developing world, complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19, 90 percent of whom are married. Furthermore, stillbirths and newborn deaths are 50 percent higher in mothers under the age of 20, who are more likely to have babies with low birth weight.
