Early Marriage in Palestine
Early Marriage in Palestine
In Palestine, we have 220,070 women in the age 20-24, about 11% of them were married before they reached the age 18, which means getting married during their “childhood”. This percentage was 30% in 1997 and reached 18% in the year 2007, which reflects an enhancement during the last twenty years, which is due to the increase in the educational level for both men and women, in addition to the awareness levels of risk related to early marriage especially concerning reproductive health.
Early Marriage in Palestine, 2017
Legend:
Early Marriage is Decreasing
Location
In Urban areas 11.6% of the women in the age 20-24 were married before age 18, 8.0% in the rural areas, and 8.9% in refugee camps in 2017.
Refugee Status
10.2% of refugee women in the age 20- 24 and were married before age 18, while it reached 11.3% for non-refugee women in the same age group in 2017.
Educational Level
Women with less educational level were exposed to early marriage more than women in the same age group with higher educational level; for instance 39.4% of women in the age 20-24 with elementary education were married before age 18, while it reached 30.9% for women with preparatory education, 0.9% for women with bachelor degree in 2017.
In other words, 63.9% of women in the age 20-24 who were married before age 18 in Palestine have preparatory education, 20.7% of them with secondary education, and 11.2% with elementary education in 2017
Labour Force Components
Most of women in the age 20-24 who were married before age 18 are not participating in the labour market
Most of women in this category are economically not active 96.9% in Palestine (98.2% in the West Bank, and 95.9% in Gaza Strip), 3.1% of those women economically active, 0.6% of them are employed (1.1% in the West Bank and 0.2% in Gaza Strip. And 2.4% are unemployed, 2.4% in Palestine (0.6% in the West Bank, and 3.9% in Gaza Strip) for the year 2017
Labour Force Components
No relationship between unemployment rates for women aged 20-24 and early marriage.
for example, the unemployment rate in Deir Al Balah reached 91% and this has 7% of women aged 20-24 who were married before age 18, in contrast the unemployment rate is 84% in Gaza city with 17% of women aged 20-24 who were married before age 18 in 2017.
Number of Live Births for the women in the age 20-24 who were married before age 18:
According to the population housing and establishments census 2017, the result showed 54,130 births in Palestine (42.8% of them in the West Bank and 57.2% in Gaza strip) were born to those women, in average 2.3 per women, which is high for this age group.
Early Marriage by Governorate
North of West Bank has better situation than the South, and in Gaza Strip, where data shows a real issue concerning this indicator.
North Gaza had the highest proportion of women aged 20-24 and were married before age 18, which reached 16.9% but it showed noticeable improvement by decreasing this percentage to less more than the half where it was 44.3% in 1997.
Tulkarm governorate had the lowest proportion in this era, which reached 5.3% where it was 22.4% in 1997, followed by Tubas and Northern Valleys, and Ramallah and Al Bireh governorate, which showed a good improvement through reaching 5.5% in 2017.
Early Marriage by Governorate
Gaza Strip has higher proportion of child marriage than the West Bank
Regions in Palestine have different changes; in the West Bank it was 27% in 1997 and decreased within twenty years to reach less than 9%, and also Gaza Strip had a real decrease from 32% in 1997 to reach less than 14% in 2017. Gaza Strip still have higher percentages than the West Bank taking into consideration the necessity to work on decreasing this phenomenon in Palestine, which is still high despite of the positive development.
This is the situation in 2017, what it will be after 10 Years?
It is Time to Decide
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2018 -Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
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