In Ecuador, one in five women between 20 and 24 years old was married or in a union before the age of 18and 4% did so before turning 15, according to the National Health and Nutrition Survey (ENSANUT 2018). Although since 2015 the country prohibits any marriage between minorsthis practice persists in other forms: informal unions that reproduce the same patterns of inequality, control and violence.
The new edition of the report The State of the World’s Girls 2025: Let me be a girl, not a wifeprepared by International Planreveals that in Ecuador these early unions continue to be normalized and socially accepted in various communities: “Although child marriage is legally prohibited, Informal unions remain common and culturally tolerated“, warns the document.
Salome Parreñonational gender advisor for Plan International Ecuador, explained to Infobae that these unions are an extreme expression of poverty and structural inequality: “We still manage the imagination that a girl or adolescent who joins or marries is already a woman. But in reality she is not ready to assume those roles nor does she choose to be in them. In many cases, marriage or union is the only destiny left for their families for economic reasons.”
According to the study, almost 25% of mothers under 18 years of age in the country live in early unions or are married, and in provinces such as Manabi this figure reaches 36.7%. The correlation between poverty and child marriage is direct: families in vulnerable situations tend to see in these unions a way to “secure the future” of their daughters or reduce an economic burden. “In Ecuador, we have seen that there are exchanges between girls of 14, 15 and 16 years old and men at least five years older. In these relationships there is no real consent”, Parreño emphasized.
Plan International’s global report shows that the phenomenon transcends borders. In the 15 countries studied—including Ecuador, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal and the Dominican Republic—, the girls interviewed agree on having lost autonomy, education and freedom.
Seven out of ten are married or in a union; three out of four are mothers, and more than a third dropped out of school after getting married. Vulnerability, violence and economic dependence mark their stories. More than one in three young women in the study said they had no say in household decisions, and one in eight acknowledged having suffered physical or sexual violence from their partner.
In Ecuador, poverty and lack of sexual education aggravate the situation. “Many of these teenage pregnancies are the result of unequal relationships. When a 15-year-old girl relates to a 25-year-old man, that age difference already implies an inequality of power. But socially it is still seen as ‘a love story,’” Parreño explained.
The report highlights that, despite regulatory advances, the legislation fails to transform the cultural norms that perpetuate this form of violence. In two-thirds of the countries studied, the minimum age of marriage can be circumvented through exceptions or informal marriages. In Ecuador, although these unions can no longer be legally registered, “adolescents continue to live together, especially when there is an unplanned pregnancy,” Parreño added.
The challenge, according to Plan International, lies in the gap between norm and practice. The laws exist, but community settings continue to validate early unions. “There are communities where religious or local leaders continue to endorse informal ceremonies. For families, it is a way to preserve honor or repair a pregnancy outside of marriage,” the global study states.
The result is under-reporting that makes the problem invisible. According to data from the Ecuadorian census, around 6,000 children and adolescents self-identify as married, divorced or widowed. This self-identification, Parreño warned, shows the extent to which society continues to validate the conjugal role of girls.
Plan International promotes the “Teen Pregnancy Free Zone“, which between 2014 and 2018 reduced pregnancies in girls under 15 years of age by 73% and those of adolescents between 15 and 17 by 57%. In indigenous communities, the reduction reached 50%. The program combines youth leadership, comprehensive sexual education, articulation with the health system and transformation of discriminatory social norms. “We are training young people to be agents of change in their communities, which Replicate what you learned with your families and neighbors. There is still a lot of ignorance: many people do not know that since 2015 child marriage has been prohibited. We need to raise awareness, because this practice is a form of structural violence based on gender,” says Parreño.
Every year, 12 million girls in the world are married before turning 18; about 480,000 are under 15. Globally, one in five young women was married before the age of 18, and one in 30 among men. Although rates have decreased from 22% to 19% in the last decade, progress is uneven and fragile, especially in contexts of crisis or extreme poverty.
