Children weddings in Benin: when tradition hinders the future
In a country like Benin, poverty pushes some families to consider marriage as a financial solution. This transfer relieves expenses and sometimes allows you to receive a matrimonial gift in exchange. Some customs assign the value of a girl to her virginity and marriage from the first menstruation. In communities where tradition prevails, early marriage is seen as a moral duty, a shield against out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in the rural areas of the north. With one in three girls forced into marriage, it’s an entire generation whose childhood is amputated. Marriage reinforces entrenched gendered roles. Women often remain in a secondary position, economically and socially. As long as mentalities do not change, laws may remain dead letters.
Since 2003, the legal minimum age for marriage has been set at 18 years for both sexes, in line with international standards. Benin has also ratified several conventions, including the African Charter on the Rights of the Child and the Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa.
However, the application in villages remains symbolic. Between 2024 and April 2025, 336 cases of forced child marriages and 60 court cases were documented. These figures reveal a blatant underreporting and many marriages are not even registered, others are arranged informally without administrative origin.
Legislation vs reality…
Comparative studies show that simply raising the legal age for marriage is not enough without monitoring and awareness. A law is effective only if it is accompanied by deployment on the ground. The national child protection plan and law 2021-11 established zero tolerance towards violence against girls, including child marriage.
Community legal clinics raise awareness among local authorities and judges about the rights of minors. Armande HOUEDJISSI, sociologist, points out that “early marriage is less an individual choice than a family sacrifice to improve economic conditions”. As for Rodrigue ALAFAI, psychologist, “these unions trigger depression, trauma and loss of confidence among young girls, deprived of education and autonomy.”
Devastating consequences…
Several consequences are generated by this phenomenon, including education which is interrupted due to lack of schooling, because girls do not access the skills necessary for work or emancipation, insists the sociologist. Then, one can cite, the health risks that lead to early pregnancies lead to serious or even fatal complications.
In these conditions, adolescents aged 12 to 15 years present a maternal risk much higher than that of older women, notes the psychologist. In terms of prospects and challenges, governments will have to make the law effective in order to strengthen the training of public officials and traditional leaders and increase the number of child protection brigades to report cases.
It is also urgent to change the norms in order to continue cultural interventions on the ground, with artistic campaigns, workshops in schools and churches, and testimonial collections. Among other actions to be carried out, supporting education through scholarships, mentoring, raising awareness of sexual and reproductive rights from adolescence, but also and above all mobilize the international community to strengthen financial partnerships and support educational and legal actions in the long term.
In Benin, child marriage is not inevitable, but a choice imposed by poverty, the weight of traditions and the lack of law enforcement. This scourge profoundly hinders individual and collective development. To turn the page, current initiatives must intensify and multiply. The issue goes far beyond, it is a fight for the future of Beninese society, an affirmation that every child deserves to be fully a child, to learn, to dream and to act.