Child marriage has been banned in Mexico since March 2019. The organization Save the Children reported last year that despite the ban, 1 in 100 girls between the ages of 12 and 14 are still being married off. It is said to be particularly prevalent in certain indigenous and afro-Mexican communities. Sometimes children would even be sold to pay off debts.
Dowry paid
According to the National Bureau of Statistics in Mexico (INEGI), 326,000 Mexican women married against their will in 2021. In 193,000 cases, a dowry was paid in exchange for an arranged marriage. These are often minors. “These practices violate the best interests of children and undermine fundamental rights,” said Senator Olga Sánchez Cordero in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The change in Mexican law makes the sentences almost twice as severe. For example, those who force marriages of children under the age of 18 can now receive 12 to 22 years in prison. By way of comparison: in the Netherlands, perpetrators of forced marriage can be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison. According to estimates from 2020, it occurs about 250 times a year in the Netherlands.
The Mexican Senate voted unanimously in favor of the stricter law, which had already been ratified by the Mexican House of Representatives. The law, which will take effect when it is published, also provides for significantly higher penalties for femicide. The murder of a woman who is underage, pregnant or has a disability is now punishable by up to 112 years in prison. That was 70 years.
