Global Girlhood 2020: COVID-19 and progress in peril
An estimated 500,000 more girls risk being forced into child marriage and as many as one million more are expected to become pregnant in 2020 as a result of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new analysis from Save the Children reveals—a year-over-year increase of four and three per cent, respectively. In its new report Global Girlhood 2020: COVID-19 and progress in peril, Save the Children analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on gender equality, revealing its devastating effects. Up to 2.5 million additional girls are expected to marry over the next five years. Together with the 58.4 million child marriages taking place on average every five years, this amounts to a staggering 61 million child marriages by 2025. Girls in South Asia are disproportionately impacted by the risk of increased child marriage this year (191,000), followed by West and Central Africa (90,000), and Latin America and the Caribbean (73,400). The practice is also expected to rise in East Asia and the Pacific (61,000), Europe and Central Asia (37,200), and the Middle East and North Africa (14,400).
