Underage Marriage: Global and Uzbekistan Statistics

Worldwide, one in every five girls gets married before the age of 18, meaning they enter into official or unofficial marriages. This was reported by Zamin.uz.

According to data from the United Nations Population Fund, nearly 640 million girls have married before reaching adulthood to date. Approximately 12 million girls marry before turning 18 each year.

This means that a girl gets married every three seconds. These cases are mostly observed in South Asian and African countries.

In Central Asian countries, the rates of child marriage have significantly decreased. For example, in 1999, the proportion of girls marrying early in this region was 13 percent, while by 2024 this figure has dropped to 6 percent.

According to statistics for Uzbekistan, between 1997 and 2022, the number of those married before age 15 was 48.5 thousand, and those married before age 18 amounted to 1.1 million. The highest rates by region were recorded in Samarkand (3 percent), Andijan (2 percent), Fergana (1 percent), and Karakalpakstan (0.8 percent) provinces.

Encouragingly, child marriage rates worldwide are gradually declining. In 2000, one-third of women aged 20–24 had married before adulthood, but by 2021 this rate had fallen to one-fifth.

Over the last 25 years, 68 million child marriages have been prevented. This indicates that international efforts are bearing fruit.