Child Marriage and Religion
Going over UNICEF’s datasets, I noticed that child marriage in Lebanon is very common especially for girls and there are many factors leading to these high percentages. One of the main factors would be that different religions and sects have different minimum age requirements for marriage and the absence of laws. Religious courts regulate most cases and set the minimum age to be fifteen, however, it is worth noting that some girls are forced to get married at ages younger than that.
The below visualization shows the legal marriage age across different religions in Lebanon.
Law enforcement is a major step in decreasing child marriage. Lebanon should develop a national strategy to end child marriage