Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children. Credit: Just Rights for Children
By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2025 – Global leaders came together at the sidelines of this year’s UN General Assembly to commit to ending child marriage, calling on all world leaders to make concerted efforts to ensure accountability and enforce the laws that prohibit it.
Just Rights for Children is committed to the eradication of child-related abuses, including child trafficking, online abuse and child marriage. This NGO, first founded in India by lawyer and activist Bhuwan Ribhu, has worked to prevent nearly 400,000 child marriages in India over the last three years and rescued over 75,000 children from trafficking.
After successful, ongoing campaigns in India and Nepal, Just Rights for Children launched their global campaign to bring about a ‘Child Marriage-Free World by 2030’ on the sidelines of UNGA on September 25. This campaign is set to create the largest global civil society network to end child marriage.
“Child marriage, abuse, and violence are not just injustices: they are crimes,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of Just Rights for Children. “The end of child marriage is not only possible but eminent. By coming together as a global community, we can help ensure that child marriage and abuse are fully prosecuted and prevented, not only by legal systems but by society as a whole.”
When asked about the significance of hosting this event during UNGA, Ribhu told IPS: “This is where all the world leaders are uniting, and they discussing issues that are plaguing the world today. It becomes all the more important that the world leaders sit up and take notice. That there is a pervasive crime, the crime of child rape in the name of marriage.”
“We believe that the world leaders need to unite and come together to support the enforcement of laws in their countries. They need to unite, to support the children and the youth that are coming out and demanding the end of child rape and child marriage by taking pledges.”
Nearly one in five young women aged 20-49 are married before turning 18 years old. Data from UNICEF shows that in 2023, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 45 percent and 20 percent respectively of the number of girls married before age 18. In India, the prevalence of child marriage was at 24 percent in 2021. Since then, this rate has dropped to less than 10 percent through the joint efforts of legal enforcement through the courts and government and through the advocacy work of civil society groups.
H.E. Dr. Fatima Maada Bio, First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone (middle) accepts a Champion for Children award from Just Rights for Children. Credit; Just Rights for Children
Child marriage is also associated with other negative outcomes such as the increased risk of domestic abuse, early pregnancy and maternal mortality. Lack of access to education is also at risk with girls being forced to drop out once they’ve entered a union. There is the need, therefore, to not just help these girls return to school, but also educate them on their rights and the laws meant to protect them.
Ribhu and Just Rights for Children emphasize the rule of law as the path toward ending child marriage. Other legal and human rights experts agree that at least three key steps are required: the prevention of the crime, the protection of the victims, and the prosecution of the perpetrators in order to deter future crimes. Reparations for the victims are also critical for justice and for trauma recovery.
Ribhu explained to IPS that they target the adults that aid and abet child marriages. In addition to the “groom” and family members, they also believe other members of the community should be held accountable. This includes community leaders and councils, priests that officiate the union, and even the wedding vendors that knowingly cater at weddings where the bride is underage.
“At the end of the day, we have to see that enforcement of law creates that culture of accountability, that culture of responsibility, that culture of respect, culture of consciousness, where people believe that they cannot get away with it, and so that entire impunity collapses. So child marriage is one such crime where it is happening in the open because nobody is actually stopping it,” he said.
“Today, I ask you to turn your influence towards ensuring that the law works, not just as an institution, as an ideal, but as a living and concrete instrument for the protection of children,” said Kerry Kennedy, President of RFK Human Rights. “Impunity is the oxygen in which these crimes survive. Prosecution is the antidote.”
Even though child marriage is considered morally unconscionable and is illegal across regional, national and international law, it continues to persist due to failures in the legal systems. There are other loopholes in the system that are exploited. Najat Maalla M’jid, UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Violence Against Children, explained that some laws set the age of consent to lower than 18 years, or make it permissible through parental permission, or those marriages are not legally registered, therefore making it harder to track.
As Kennedy later told IPS, there has been “no history of accountability”. When law enforcement play their part to hold all parties accountable, this must also include police departments that fail to investigate the cases and therefore. “Nobody wants to go to jail. Everybody’s fearful of it. This is what works.”
Ribhu noted that the prevention of crime could only happen when there is respect for the rule of law. It is supposed to be this certainty of punishment that deters bad actors, and then lead to growing awareness on the evils of child marriage and prevent future cases. Deterrence must work in tandem with awareness.
The speakers at the event all emphasized that tackling child marriage and protecting the girls made vulnerable by it required cooperation across multiple groups, from legal experts to government leaders to survivors to members of the private sector such as philanthropists.
Other countries have recently taken steps to pass laws prohibiting child marriage. The Kenyan government passed the Kenya Children Act 2022 which criminalized abuses against children, including child marriage.
“Child marriage is a grave violation of girls’ human rights that threatens the future of millions of girls worldwide. Our youthful demographic in Kenya, highlights the need of sustained a national and county investments, especially in programs targeting children, youth and women,” said Carren Ageng’o, Principal Secretary, Children Services, Ministry for Gender, Culture and Children Services, Government of Kenya. In a country where nearly 51 percent of population are between the ages of 0-17, legal and social protections for the youth population are critical for its development.
Last year Sierra Leone passed the Child Marriage Prohibition Bill 2024 through efforts led by First Lady Dr. Fatima Maada Bio.
Maada said that this law “was a bold and historic step” for the country but made it clear that the “law is just the beginning.”
“Real change happens in families, in schools, in villages, and in places of worship. Real change happens when communities stand up and say, ‘not our daughter, not anymore,’” said Maada. “I do not dream of a Sierra Leone free of child marriage; I dream of a world free of child marriage. That dream is within reach if only we act now.”
Remarking on the UN General Assembly meetings hosted in UN headquarters, she went on to add: “If governments have courage, if international partners stand with us, if communities take ownership, if the leaders [behind those guarded doors] in this city of New York today…decided that the time to protect children is now.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
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