There is no minimum age for marriage in Lebanon, where each religious sect has distinct\u00a0personal status laws governing marriage, divorce, and inheritance.<\/p>\n
Some of these laws\u00a0allow\u00a0<\/a>girls younger than 15 to get married.<\/p>\n According to a\u00a02016 UNICEF report<\/a>, six percent of women in Lebanon between 20 to 24 of age got married before turning 18.\u00a0It’s time this comes to an end.<\/p>\n In hopes of raising awareness on the issue and exerting pressure on the Lebanese parliament to\u00a0fight child marriage, the\u00a0Lebanese Democratic Women\u2019s Gathering (RDFL), a secular non-governmental women’s rights organization, has launched a campaign titled “Not Before 18.”<\/p>\n The media campaign officially kick-started on October 11, which marked the International Day of the Girl Child.<\/p>\n RDFL aims\u00a0to raise awareness of the health risks of child marriage and push for a civil law that sets the minimum age of marriage to 18.<\/p>\n As part of the launch, the organization held a conference\u00a0in the presence of official and civil public figures and released a video that demonstrates the gravity of the problem.<\/p>\n “Because we consider that the marriage of a girl who does not have the intellectual, legal, psychological and health abilities that qualify her to choose freely and consciously or to commit to a contract […] in our opinion, this is not called marriage, but forced marriage,”\u00a0the President of RDFL, Laila Mrouwe, said in the conference.<\/p>\n “Any girl under the age of 18, even by one day, is still considered a child and has the full right to legal protection from early marriage.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Additionally, the campaign has seen a number of celebrities from different fields voice their support for the initiative through\u00a0short videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n