Perceptions and Practices of Early marriage of female child from 2009 to 2013 in Sinane district Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Female child early marriage has numerous challenges both at global and regional level. It denied access to education and economic opportunities and has a big impact on the health of the child with its complex problem on maternal and child mortality. Ethiopia is one of the countries that female child marriage practice has more prevalent and from the regions of Ethiopia Amahra region has the highest prevalence. The main objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of early marriage practice among female child from 2009 to 2013 in Sinane district northwest Ethiopia. Community-based cross sectional study design was carried out. The data ware analyzed using SPSS version 20 statistical software. A total of 802 participants responded for the interviews making the response rate 96.2%. Majority (74.6%) of the respondents were fathers and 151 (18.8%) of household heads were mothers. About 615 (76.7%) respondents wedded their daughters before 18 years of age. Sixty percent of girls married before their 15 years old. The mean marital age was (14.78 4.1). More than half 473 (59%) of respondents wedded one daughter each and the remaining 288 (35.9%) and 41 (5.1%) parents wedded two and three daughters respectively within the last five years. The prevalence of early marriage practice is high in the study area. Awareness has to be created in the community regarding the legal marital age and the possible devastating consequences of early marriage for the girl, family and the community as a whole.