More Than Just Trauma: How Child Marriage Impacts Psychological Health

By: Nafisa Labib

Source: Malaysia NOW

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The right to live entails a right to dream, to hope and to achieve one’s fullest possible potential. Child marriage tears away these aspects from child brides forced into early marriages - a plight that they may not ever recover from emotionally and physically.

As per UNICEF, child marriage is defined as a formal or informal union between an under-18 individual and another child or adult. Annually, 12 million young girls are detrimentally affected by child marriage, often with no hope of an escape from their predicament.

Regarding the maturation of the adolescent brain, the National Library of Medicine reports that maturation and development of the area of the brain necessary for complex behavioural changes and extensive brain functions only matures through development after adolescence; by the age of 25. Child brides with no say in their own lives cannot make complex decisions required in marriages and do not have the emotional or physical capacity to bear the burdens and responsibilities that come with child marriages.

Akshita Wasnik from The Budding Psychologists highlights the effects on a child’s mental health in her 2021 article. The consensus of a person’s psychological wellbeing can be categorised into factors such as anxiety, depressed mood, general health, vitality, positive well-being, and self-control.

In child marriages, the factors that most negatively affect a child’s mental state are the unfamiliar environments they are put in, the violence and sexual abuse that they face or may face, socio-economic status, inequality in gender - as they might see their siblings or peers not face the same situations that they do just because of gender – and incomplete education that comes about while adult responsibilities weigh them down. To note, childbearing and -rearing at a young age brings about a myriad more mental and physical distress symptoms.

Previous studies, as stated by Wasnik, have emphasised that the mental health issues that stem from child marriages follow children well into their adulthood, leading to social issues such as lack of companionship, as well as poor decision-making skills.

Taylor’s University School of Medicine lecturer provides her insights on the concerns and impacts leading to complications of a child’s mental health due to child marriage in the following section. Speaking on psychological concerns, Dr. Punithavathy Shanmuganathan highlights her informed opinion.

Deprived of a proper transition into adolescence prior to adulthood, girls married off before the age of 18, lack proper life skills and ideas to navigate through the life of adulthood that they are thrown into as child brides. Severe mental distress and mental health issues arise as a result of this, and the disarrangement of their childhood breaks them away from their peers and families.

Dr. Punithavathy further states that these children end up having a higher risk of disorders relating to abuse of substances, aside from already facing depression as the most common diagnosis of their emotional illnesses. Furthermore, as they face more taxing life events, suicidal tendencies; through thoughts and attempts, also become more prevalent. All in all, girls forced into child marriages have been reported to be at greater risk of anxiety, adjustment disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is important to note that, often, these young girls will face abuse at their in-laws’ hands, further aggravating their already existing negative emotional states.

It must be acknowledged that governmental factors and intervention with focus on the harmful aspects can put an end to the issue of child marriage. Additionally, Dr. Punithavathy states that programs focusing on social and behavioural change must be targeted to boys in certain cultures for gender equality, where emphasis must be on ensuring men do not pursue child brides. But most importantly, to raise the legal age to marry to18 years of age, disregarding religious or cultural morals, is a surefire way by the government to control and contain the issue at hand. Through education and regulations in society, children will have more of an opportunity to reach their fullest capabilities without the hindrance that comes with stepping into early adulthood.