Child marriage is being increasingly recognized globally as a fundamental violation of human rights. Child marriages occur globally in varying degrees across countries and regions. South Asia alone accounted for almost half of the total number of child marriages that have occurred globally.

Girls are subject to child marriage, female genital mutilation and limited education and as such, are denied equality of opportunities.

This position paper presents several strong arguments about why it is imperative to address child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, if we want to succeed in harnessing the demographic dividend in West and Central Africa.

Child marriage in West and Central Africa is one of the biggest challenges in the region and has enormous adverse effects on education, health, including sexual and reproductive health, and on the overall development of adolescents and youth.

This is the first policy brief produced by the Young Marriage and Parenthood Study (YMAPS), looking at research findings from Young Lives (Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and Child Frontiers (Zambia).

This report summarizes 2015 state-level findings from a large-scale study of six Indian states titled Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion in India (UPAI).