Recent report published by Palestinian Media Watch highlighted how much child marriage is a major problem within Palestinian society. Unfortunately, the world is barely focused on this issue.
By Rachel Avraham
If one researches the issue of child marriage in the Palestinian Authority, one will find that almost all of the articles that discuss the issue mainly discuss the situation in Gaza and were printed before the October 7th massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza. In fact, the international community has been virtually silent about the issue of child marriage within the Palestinian Authority in recent times, instead preferring to focus on the war and how it has adversely affected Palestinian women and girls in Gaza.
There are some exceptions. A UN report on the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories written in January 2025 stressed: “71 percent of Gazan girls report increased pressure to marry before they turn 18, as a means to help their family cope financially.”
The UN Population Fund published a report earlier this year in May 2025, where they noted: “Gender-based violence is on the rise. Repeated displacement, unsafe conditions, and the breakdown of social protection have left women and girls increasingly exposed to intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, and child marriage.”
According to the UN Population Fund, “Three women and girls’ safe spaces, providing shelter and services shut down, while the remaining 14 are operating at limited capacity. In April, UNFPA remained on the ground, reaching over 50,000 people with essential sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, and youth-focused services across Palestine.”
However, while child marriage is a major problem in Palestinian society, the issue has not gotten the spotlight that it deserves in the West. Many Western media outlets, politicians and members of the international community are too busy blaming Israel instead of Hamas for the starvation in the Gaza Strip and the lack of hygiene products for Gazan women to pay attention to the issue of child marriage, which causes lasting psychological damage to anyone who experiences such a thing.
The international community is especially silent when the phenomenon occurs in Judea and Samaria in areas controlled by the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority, who is under much less international pressure than the Hamas-terror run regime in Gaza is. Nevertheless, ignoring the issue does not make the problem go away. If anything, it makes the problem worse.
However, some Palestinians are brave enough to discuss this issue that the West is neglecting. “Imagine a 15-year-old child married and having babies; it’s a child raising children,” said Hayat Mahmoud, a lawyer, as she facilitated a two-hour session on child marriage at the Al-Daraj Women’s Program Center. “Child marriage is a serious problem facing the community,” said Hayat. “It clearly violates human and children’s rights. Children lose their right to an education, to play and to choose.”
“Many uneducated women are illiterate because early marriage led to their education being truncated visit the Women’s Program Center. Increased awareness will not eliminate child marriage, but it will reduce it. Early marriage will be eliminated through the collective efforts of all organizations. I dream of life without child marriage,” said Hayat.
Palestinian Media Watch noted in a recent report, “In a rare moment of self-criticism, the official Palestinian Authority daily highlighted the Palestinian custom of forced marriages of young Palestinian girls to much older men. The cartoon chosen to accompany the article expressed the horror: a balding groom with a cane off to his wedding with a teary-eyed child bride who has just dropped her teddy bear.” Palestinian Media Watch translated the entire article printed in Al Hayat Al Jadida into English.
According to Al Hayat Al Jadida, “While R.K. was arranging her books for a school exam, her mother interrupted her with a sentence that changed the course of her life: ‘A groom is coming for you.’ Just months later, R.K. wore a white wedding dress, but she did not know that the white color was liable to conceal a deep pain that would accompany her for a long time. R.K. was forcibly married at the age of 14, after her father’s death. In words dripping with pain, R.K. tells [the official PA daily] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida about some of her tragedy.”
Al Hayat Al Jadida continued, “’My husband was always violent towards me. He is addicted to Tramadol pills. I would run away to my family’s home, but the [clan’s] dignitaries returned me to him every time, following his false promises to stop the violence.’ She believes that the early marriage robbed her of her childhood and prevented her from getting an education. The last time, R.K. was beaten with a sharp object and fled barefoot with her children without any personal belongings. After suffering for two years, she received a divorce without alimony or support!”
According to Al Hayat Al Jadida, “Despite the publication of [PA] Decision with Legislative Force No. 21 of 2019 to limit the marriage age to 18, the exceptional cases allowed by the law under the pretext of ‘necessity’ and ‘the interests of both parties’ have emptied the law of its content, and left the door open to the phenomenon. The exception due to a need that the judge deems appropriate continues to be an open window for child marriages, through which hundreds of cases pass each year, against the backdrop of a lack of effective supervision and differences in enforcement between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Between 1995-2019, about 200,000 marriages were registered in Palestine, 95% of which were of girls under the age of 18… “
“In 2019, Decision with Legislative Force No. 21 of 2019 was published… [which] changes the marriage age to 18 for males and females alike,” Al Hayat Al Jadida noted. “However, paragraph 2 of the same article states: ‘As an exception to what is stated in paragraph 1 of this clause, an authorized court is allowed – in special cases and if the marriage is a necessity required by the interests of both parties – to permit marriage for those who have not yet reached 18 years with the approval of the supreme Shari’ah judge of Palestine or the religious authorities of other groups.”
Al Hayat Al Jadida reported, “According to initial estimates and statistics from 2020-2021, more than 10,000 cases of marriages below the legal age, 18 years, were registered… Director of the Policy and Legislation Oversight Department at the Independent Commission for Human Rights lawyer Khadija] Zahran… said: ‘The amendment to the law did not reduce the marrying off of female minors, and the monitoring we conduct in cooperation with the women’s organizations indicates that the exceptional cases have become the rule that is relied upon to circumvent the law, instead of being rare cases.’ …Despite repeated attempts to obtain an official response, the Shari’ah judicial system refrained from providing any response…”
According to Al Hayat Al Jadida, “As for the reasons that cause some of the families to obtain a legal exception to marry off their daughters before they reach the legal age of 18, Chairwoman of the Women’s Studies Center in Jerusalem Sama Uweida… said: ‘The first reason is the social heritage, which views marrying off the girl early as a means of protecting her from getting entangled in socially unacceptable relationships, thereby preserving the family’s ‘good name.’ Marriages of girls are also perceived as a means to ease the financial burden on the family, especially in low-income families. There are also those who believe that a girl has a better chance of marrying at a young age, because there are men who prefer to marry young girls to ensure a longer period of physical ability and giving.’ …”
“Ministry of Women’s Affairs Legal Advisor Souna Nassar emphasized that a minimum age of at least 17 should be set for exceptional cases, and exceptions should be prohibited in cases of sexual assault,” Al Hayat Al Jadida concluded in its report. “This is in accordance with the repeal of Article 308 of the Penal Code, which allowed the perpetrator to escape punishment by marrying the victim.”
Photo from Palestinian Media Watch: https://palwatch.org/page/37231
