(10) Child marriage has negative effects on 
girls’ health, including significantly increased risk of 
maternal death and morbidity, infant mortality and 
morbidity, obstetric fistula, and sexually transmitted 
diseases, including HIV/AIDS. 
(11) According to the United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID), increasing the 
age at first birth for a woman will increase her 
chances of survival. Currently, pregnancy and child-
birth complications are the leading cause of death 
for women 15 to 19 years old in developing coun-
tries. 
(12) In developing countries, girls 15 years of 
age are five times more likely to die in childbirth 
than women in their 20s. 
(13) Child marriage can result in bonded labor 
or enslavement, commercial sexual exploitation, and 
violence against the victims, according to UNICEF. 
(14) Out-of-school or unschooled girls are at 
greater risk of child marriage while girls in school 
face pressure to withdraw from school when sec-
ondary school requires monetary costs, travel, or 
other social costs, including lack of lavatories and 
supplies for menstruating girls and increased risk of 
sexual violence. 
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(15) In Mozambique 60 percent of girls with no 
education are married by age 18, compared to 10 
percent of girls with secondary schooling and less 
than 1 percent of girls with higher education. 
(16) According to UNICEF, in 2005 it was es-
timated that ‘‘about half of girls in Sub-Saharan Af-
rica who drop out of primary school do so because 
of poor water and sanitation facilities’’. 
(17) UNICEF reports that investments in im-
proving school sanitation resulted in a 17 percent in-
crease in school enrollment for girls in Guinea and 
an 11 percent increase for girls in Bangladesh. 
(18) Investments in girls’ schooling, creating 
safe community spaces for girls, and programs for 
skills building for out-of-school girls are all effective 
and demonstrated strategies for preventing child 
marriage and creating a pathway to empower girls 
by addressing conditions of poverty, low status, and 
norms that contribute to child marriage. 
(19) Most countries with high rates of child 
marriage have a legally established minimum age of 
marriage, yet child marriage persists due to strong 
traditional norms and the failure to enforce existing 
laws. 
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(20) In Afghanistan, where the legal age of 
marriage for girls is 16 years, 57 percent of mar-
riages involve girls below the age of 16, including 
girls younger than 10 years, according to the United 
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 
(21) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has 
stated that ‘‘child marriage is a clear and unaccept-
able violation of human rights, and that the Depart-
ment of State denounces all cases of child marriage 
as child abuse’’. 
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) child marriage is a violation of human 
rights and the prevention and elimination of child 
marriage should be a foreign policy goal of the 
United States; 
(2) the practice of child marriage undermines 
United States investments in foreign assistance to 
promote education and skills building for girls, re-
duce maternal and child mortality, reduce maternal 
illness, halt the transmission of HIV/AIDS, prevent 
gender-based violence, and reduce poverty; and 
(3) expanding educational opportunities for 
girls, economic opportunities for women, and reduc-
ing maternal and child mortality are critical to 
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achieving the Millennium Development Goals and 
the global health and development objectives of the 
United States, including efforts to prevent HIV/ 
AIDS. 
SEC. 4. ASSISTANCE TO PREVENT THE INCIDENCE OF 
CHILDHOOD 
MARRIAGE 
IN 
DEVELOPING 
COUNTRIES. 
(a) ASSISTANCE AUTHORIZED.—The President is au-
thorized to provide assistance, including through multilat-
eral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations, to 
prevent the incidence of child marriage in developing coun-
tries and to promote the educational, health, economic, so-
cial, and legal empowerment of girls and women as part 
of the strategy established pursuant to section 5 to pre-
vent child marriage in developing countries. 
(b) PRIORITY.—In providing assistance authorized 
under subsection (a), the President shall give priority to— 
(1) areas or regions in developing countries in 
which 15 percent of girls under the age of 15 are 
married or 40 percent of girls under the age of 18 
are married; and 
(2) activities to— 
(A) expand and replicate existing commu-
nity-based programs that are successful in pre-
venting the incidence of child marriage; 
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(B) establish pilot projects to prevent child 
marriage; and 
(C) share evaluations of successful pro-
grams, program designs, experiences, and les-
sons. 
(c) COORDINATION.—Assistance authorized under 
subsection (a) shall be integrated with existing United 
States programs for advancing appropriate age and grade- 
level basic and secondary education through adolescence, 
ensure school enrollment and completion for girls, health, 
income generation, agriculture development, legal rights, 
and democracy building and human rights, including— 
(1) support for community-based activities that 
encourage community members to address beliefs or 
practices that promote child marriage and to edu-
cate parents, community leaders, religious leaders, 
and adolescents of the health risks associated with 
child marriage and the benefits for adolescents, es-
pecially girls, of access to education, health care, 
livelihood skills, microfinance, and savings programs; 
(2) enrolling girls in primary and secondary 
school at the appropriate age and keeping them in 
age-appropriate grade levels through adolescence; 
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