UN adopts November 27 as International Day Against Child Marriage

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted November 27 as the International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage, giving the campaign a fixed date for global action.

Fatima Maada Bio, Sierra Leone’s first lady and president of the Organisation of African First Ladies for Development, presented the resolution in New York. The assembly then adopted it by consensus. She called the decision more than a symbolic gesture, saying it represented “a global mandate for action.”

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Today, the world has spoken with one voice: child, early and forced marriage has no place in our societies.

“Today, the world has spoken with one voice: child, early and forced marriage has no place in our societies,” Maada Bio said in a statement shared on social media.

Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children and another supporter of the proposal, said the new observance should draw attention to sexual abuse committed under the cover of marriage and early unions. “Establishing an international day to end child, early and forced marriage creates a vital opportunity to place the protection of girls and adolescents from sexual abuse, committed under the veil of marriage and early unions, at the center of government action and political discourse, while generating mass awareness in communities globally,” he told EFE.

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A global mandate for action.

The UN Population Fund said an estimated 640 million girls and women alive today were married during childhood. UNICEF data for 2025 put the highest prevalence in West and Central Africa, where one in three young women married before turning 18. Rates stood at 29% in Eastern and Southern Africa, 26% in South Asia and 21% in Latin America and the Caribbean.

UNICEF said child marriage has declined worldwide, with the sharpest progress over the past decade in South Asia, where the risk fell from 39% to 26%. But about 12 million girls still marry as children every year, leaving a need to accelerate progress toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal target.

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Establishing an international day to end child, early and forced marriage creates a vital opportunity to place the protection of girls and adolescents from sexual abuse, committed under the veil of marriage and early unions, at the center of government action and political discourse, while generating mass awareness in communities globally.