Prevalence of Early Marriage among Women in Rural Palestinian Community: A Cross-Sectional Study

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Date
2015-10-03Author
Ghrayeb, Farid AW
Rusli A, Mohamed
Ismail I, Mohd
Ghrayeb, Nahed F
Al Rifai, Ayesha
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Introduction: Early marriage of girls is rooted in developing countries. Nevertheless, the situation is varied greatly by country
and by regions within each country. It has been considered a human-rights violation of girls and young women, where contributing
to mother and early morbidity and mortality.
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of early marriage before 18 years of age in young adult women in Yatta, south
Palestine.
Methods: This study was conducted on 500 married women in Yatta. All the women were interviewed personally using a
structured Arabic questionnaire. Prevalence of early marriage was estimated for the whole sample. Chi-square was used to compute
the frequencies & percentages.
Results: Overall 41·4% of women marry or enter a union before the age of 18 years, and 54·6% do so by their age of 18-25
years. Women's and husbands' age at marriage, husbands' education appear to be significant determinants of consanguineous
marriages. The results indicated no significant differences between education and early marriage based on consanguinity.
Conclusion: Early marriage is a common occurrence and highly pervasive in the region and that it is the most dangerous of
all the harmful traditional practices. Thus, there is a need for urgent family-planning, maternal and child health intervention
programs targeted to married adolescents to minimize the high fertility (early and frequent pregnancies), and to control other
outcomes of this practice.