Department of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia.
Department of Midwifery, College of Medicine and Health Science, Wolaita Sodo University, Wolaita Sodo, Ethiopia.
Front Public Health. 2023 Sep 14;11:1132148. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1132148. eCollection 2023.
Child marriage is a harmful traditional practice, which compromises children of their childhood and threatens their lives and health. In Ethiopia, 58% of women and 9% of men get married before the age of 18 years. Surprisingly, parents in the Amhara region make marriage promises of their children before they are even born, which will hinder the region from attaining the Sustainable Development Goal of ending child marriage. Thus, this study aimed to assess the trends, determinants, and future prospects of child marriage in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
A repeated cross-sectional study was conducted using four consecutive nationally representative Ethiopian demographic and health surveys (2000-2016). A logit-based multivariate decomposition analysis for a non-linear response model was fitted to identify factors that contributed to the change in child marriage over time. Statistical significance was declared at a -value of < 0.05. The child marriage practice in the Amhara region by the year 2030 was also predicted using different forecasting features of Excel.
The trend of child marriage over the study period (2000-2016) decreased from 79.9% (76.7, 82.8) to 42.9% (39.1, 46.9), with an annual average reduction rate of 2.9%. Approximately 35.2% of the decline resulted from an increase in the proportion of women who attained secondary and above-secondary education over the two surveys. A decrease in the proportion of rural women and a change in the behavior of educated and media-exposed women also contributed significantly to the decline in child marriage. The prevalence of child marriage in the Amhara region by the year 2030 was also predicted to be 10.1% or 8.8%.
Though there has been a significant decline in child marriage in the Amhara region over the past 16 years, the proportion is still high, and the region is not going to eliminate it by 2030. Education, residence, and media exposure were all factors associated with the observed change in child marriage in this study. Therefore, additional efforts will be required if child marriage is to be eliminated by 2030, and investing more in education and media access will hasten the region's progress in this direction.
童婚是一种有害的传统习俗，它剥夺了儿童的童年，并威胁到他们的生命和健康。在埃塞俄比亚，58%的妇女和 9%的男子在 18 岁之前结婚。令人惊讶的是，阿姆哈拉地区的父母甚至在孩子出生前就为他们做出婚姻承诺，这将阻碍该地区实现终止童婚的可持续发展目标。因此，本研究旨在评估埃塞俄比亚阿姆哈拉地区童婚的趋势、决定因素和未来前景。
使用四次连续的埃塞俄比亚人口和健康调查（2000-2016 年）进行了一项重复的横断面研究。使用基于对数的多元分解分析方法对非线性响应模型进行拟合，以确定导致童婚随时间变化的因素。统计显著性在 - 值<0.05 时被宣布。使用 Excel 的不同预测功能，还预测了 2030 年阿姆哈拉地区的童婚情况。
在研究期间（2000-2016 年），童婚趋势从 79.9%（76.7，82.8）下降到 42.9%（39.1，46.9），年平均下降率为 2.9%。下降的约 35.2%归因于在两次调查中接受过中等和高等教育的妇女比例增加。农村妇女比例下降和受教育和媒体影响的妇女行为改变也对童婚率下降做出了重大贡献。到 2030 年，阿姆哈拉地区的童婚率也预计为 10.1%或 8.8%。
尽管在过去的 16 年中，阿姆哈拉地区的童婚率显著下降，但比例仍然很高，到 2030 年，该地区仍无法消除童婚。教育、居住地和媒体接触都是与本研究中观察到的童婚变化相关的因素。因此，如果要在 2030 年之前消除童婚，还需要做出更多努力，增加对教育和媒体的投入将加速该地区在这方面的进展。
