On 7 May 2025, RAF members gathered to discuss the identification and prevention of informal or unregistered child marriages in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon.
The event featured the below RAF members and speakers:
Shatha Al-Habahbih, Prevention Manager at the Jordan River Foundation
Dr. Nour Al Mousawi, Board member at Iraq Health Access Organization
Ghenwa Schinder, Co-founder and Director of Women Alive Organization in Lebanon
Rasha Abouelazm, Adolescent Girls and Youth Specialist at UNFPA Egypt Country Office
Watch the Part I recording below to learn more. Part II is also available here.
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Summary of RAF Webinar: Identification And Prevention Of Informal Or Unregistered Child Marriages In The MENA Region - 7 May 2025
Informal or unregistered child marriages are still widespread in the Middle East region and Arab states, particularly among vulnerable or undocumented groups, adding to the challenges of identifying and mitigating their impacts on girls. Speakers and RAF members from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon shared recent contextual updates and innovative programmatic approaches related to child marriage prevention in the region.
Speaker 1 – Shatha Al-Habahbih
Prevention Manager at the Jordan River Foundation
The Jordan River Foundation (JRF) is an organization founded in 1995 under the direction of Queen Rania. The foundation focuses on 3 main fields: Social Entrepreneurship (promotes equal opportunities), Child Protection (prevention and intervention programs), and Community Empowerment (long-term, sustainable growth). In Jordan, the legal minimum age for marriage is 18. However, many girls are still married off illegally at a younger age without registration. This happens due to persistent social stereotypes and cultural traditions that typically push parents into marrying off their daughters at a young age. These girls lose their legal protection and their basic rights mainly because of their undocumented status in their marriages. Generally, these types of marriages frequently result in the girls facing physical abuse and violence.
JRF has worked with UNICEF on a series of interventions, mainly through community-based initiatives. One of the key initiatives is the training of religious leaders to help shift social norms around child marriage. It is a five-day specialized training on early marriage, aimed at “Wa‘izat” (female religious advisors). These women are trusted voices in their communities, and mothers often turn to them for guidance. After this training, the Wa‘izat helped shift attitudes within conservative communities. In the past year alone, the foundation successfully trained 20 Wa‘izat, who reached over 3,333 mothers and daughters through awareness sessions.
JRF also organizes awareness programs for mothers and girls, aiming to educate them on the real consequences and dangers of early marriage. The “Stronger Together” Program, launched in 2020, is another example of the effectiveness of the foundation. This program targets both mothers and their daughters through a structured, seven-session curriculum designed for girls and mothers aged 12–17 (3 sessions for mothers / 3 sessions for girls / 1 final joint session). This program focuses on raising awareness about the harmful effects of marriage before the legal age, while improving communication between mothers and daughters. It also helps daughters gain agency, power, and confidence to speak up and seek help from their families when needed.
Several participants shared the positive effects of the program. The story of a participant who had worked as a “Khataba”, aka a matchmaker who arranged marriages between men and women, often involving underage girls, was one of the most empowering examples that the speaker gave during her intervention. For years, the Khataba believed there was nothing wrong with this practice. She had even planned to marry off her daughter at the age of 16. However, after participating in the “Stronger Together” program with her daughter, her perspective completely changed. She realized the harmful effects of early marriage and publicly declared that she would no longer be responsible for the destruction of a young girl’s life. She now refuses to arrange such marriages, even though it means losing money, and instead, she uses her platform to raise awareness among people who come to her wanting to arrange underage marriages. To sum up, the foundation focuses on a faith-based approach (real religious arguments, from the Qur’an). The foundation also ensures that its work does not provoke a clash between religious leaders and the trainers. Their programs provide concrete tools and messages that can be implemented by all.
Speaker 2: Dr. Nour Al Mousawi
Board Member at Iraq Health Access Organization (IHAO)
Iraq Health Access Organization (IHAO) is a women-led local NGO established in 2007 as a Fulbright project and now recognized as a leading national organization. IHAO wants to restore Iraq’s leadership in healthcare. Its mission is to address both health and social determinants to support the country’s development. The organization collaborates with both national and international partners, including UNFPA, and operates across more than ten governorates, such as Ninawa, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, Baghdad, and Basrah. Its work areas are diverse, including health and protection, financial aid for vulnerable populations, support for school-aged children and persons with disabilities (PWD), and active coordination with the Iraqi government on social welfare and service provision.
According to a recent UNFPA study, the causes of early marriages in Iraq mainly lie in deep-rooted gender and social norms, school dropout, and a limited financial capacity and economic hardship of the population. Unregistered marriages are overly widespread in this region, These undocumented alliances can be a marriage via a religious figure (Mulla/Sheikh) - the girl is married through an unofficial contract which grants her no civil rights (she lacks legal access to custody, alimony, or family ID documentation). A marriage without a Sheikh is also possible; in some cases, the girl is married informally and her children are registered under other family members’ names to obtain documentation, which leaves the woman with no legal recognition and no access to healthcare and education. In cases of a court-registered child marriage (above age 15), if the child marriage is registered through the court system and has judicial approval, the wife can at least access healthcare services and legal protections related to GBV, divorce, and custody.
In Iraq, education and healthcare are technically free services, but often depend on legal documentation. Without a civil ID, girls struggle to access health services like prenatal care or contraception. Same goes for education: while schools don’t require a marriage certificate, they do require a civil ID (after age 6), and in most cases, girls don’t have one, which makes it even harder for them to stay in school. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education doesn’t exist in the school system. This lack of awareness leaves girls without agency or protection. All of this creates a cycle of exclusion, poverty, and invisibility. Culturally, there’s strong resistance—both socially and from institutions—to giving girls any kind of power or autonomy. Many are too afraid to talk about their bodies or rights. A deep generational divide worsens the issue: young girls now have access to the internet and outside ideas that clash with their parents’ traditional beliefs. Some even hold foreign passports, but are still unprotected once in Iraq. These tensions have led to increased suicide and domestic violence among adolescents.
Even though healthcare and education are free on paper, child marriage continues. Without strong laws, sustained funding, proper education, and a shift in societal mindset, the rights of girls will remain unprotected. The issue isn’t just about laws, there’s also strong cultural resistance. The speaker mentions that in IHAO’s learning spaces, they’ve seen how scared girls are to even mention topics linked to their body, health, and agency. Plus, before the war, the lack of internet kept Iraq rooted in patriarchal views. But now, with internet access and the return of diaspora families, girls are exposed to global values that often clash with their parents’ beliefs. Some of them even hold foreign passports, but embassies have limited power to help as they are residents inside Iraq. This generational gap has led to rising cases of suicide and domestic violence among young girls. There’s still no national domestic violence law and no shelters for adolescent girls in Iraq. No real policies exist to help families navigate the massive cultural shift they’re going through.
IHAO’s work to prevent child marriage also includes addressing this issue in/through school support for girls aged 13–18, life skills programs, and international tools. They engage parents, especially mothers, to promote education over early marriage, and work with teachers and social workers to shift traditional gender norms. Despite these efforts, challenges persist due to the absence of government SRH education. Child marriage is a harmful norm in Iraq, even when education and healthcare are made accessible. The root of the problem goes beyond this accessibility and availability, it’s a legal and deeply cultural problem.
Speaker 3: Ghenwa Schinder
Co-founder and Director of Women Alive Organization in Lebanon
In the case of Lebanon, the country still lacks a civil law setting a minimum age for marriage. Instead, 18 sects apply 15 different personal status laws, which continue to allow early marriage. In September 2023, a law protecting children from early marriage was approved by the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and is now under review. There are promises to reform laws on women’s and human rights, but a delay keeps showing up because of political instability and religious pluralism.
In the context of the economic crisis and a lack of official statistics, the number of unregistered child marriages has only worsened, especially in poor and underserved regions. These undocumented marriages are rising sharply among Syrian refugees, and vulnerable Lebanese communities in rural areas like Bekaa, Akkar, and Tripoli. In fact, in a context of a constant economic crisis, poverty makes even small registration costs unaffordable; many refugee and vulnerable families often lack legal residency or ID, and there’s little awareness of the dangers of unregistered marriages. Some religious figures conduct illegal marriages, while others avoid registration to hide second marriages or escape alimony. Fraud is, unfortunately, very frequent. The consequences of unregistered early marriages are very serious; women and girls lose their rights to dowry, custody, inheritance, and housing.
In cases where the woman is a mother, her children often can’t get legal documents, access education or healthcare, and face the risk of statelessness if the father dies. Some are even registered as illegitimate, which damages their status. Lebanon’s nationality law adds to this; Lebanese mothers still cannot pass their nationality to their children, making it even more harmful in cases when the father is foreign or undocumented.
Women Alive has worked to address the crisis. For example, it has pushed for legal reform, advocating for laws that ban child marriage and allow women to pass nationality to their children. It has also focused its advocacy on simplifying marriage and birth registration procedures, and on putting pressure on both civil and religious authorities. By building networks between NGOs, donors, and local actors, Women Alive is working on improving coordination and effective communication, by raising awareness through collaborations with universities and students, and using creative, youth-centered initiatives such as art competitions, poetry, and photography to engage the younger generations in spreading awareness about the risks of child marriage.
Speaker 4: Rasha Abouelazm
Programme Specialist for Adolescent Girls and Youth at UNFPA Egypt Country Office
Child marriage remains an issue in Egypt. Each year, there are around 2,000 cases of child marriage, which accounts for about 40% of all marriages. 17% of girls marry before the age of 18, with girls living in rural areas being three times more likely to marry early compared to those in urban centers.
Some useful information about the Egyptian legal framework:
Egypt has launched several national initiatives like The Women’s Empowerment Strategy 2030, which sets a framework for gender equality, including early marriage prevention. Between 2015 and 2020, an Early Marriage Prevention Strategy aimed to address the causes of the issue. Moreover, programs like “Takaful and Karama” are linking financial support to conditions (like school attendance and no child marriage), reinforcing behavior change. Plus, they focus on raising awareness through various campaigns, including “Knocking Doors,” which continues to engage communities on the risks of early marriage.
On the legal front, between 2017 and 2021, there were efforts to propose amendments that would criminalize child marriage, with penalties of five years in prison and a fine for anyone involved. The law would also require marriage officers to report marriages involving minors. Al-Azhar also issued a fatwa in 2019 supporting the elimination of child marriage, aligning religious authority with legal reform.
UNFPA has made a strategic partnership with the NCCM, UNICEF, and UNFPA to support the update of the national strategy to end child marriage, including a research project to figure out how much funding, staff, and support are needed to successfully end child marriage.
Egypt is also leveraging wider networks for the prevention of child marriage. For instance, the Ministry of Youth and Sports is using youth clubs to raise awareness, while religious leaders/legislators are working to ensure anti-child marriage messages reach all sectors of society. The Noura initiative (under the First Lady’s leadership) works directly with girls on issues like body, health, and hygiene, using youth-friendly health services to include sexuality education and support for those at risk. To achieve lasting change, it is crucial to strengthen partnerships between institutional and governmental actors, particularly given recent funding cuts in the region.
Child marriage remains a deeply rooted issue in Palestine, affecting thousands of girls—particularly in r
Child marriage remains a deeply rooted issue in Palestine, affecting thousands of girls—particularly in refugee and c
Child marriage remains a deeply rooted issue in Palestine, affecting thousands of girls—particularly in r
