How Scotland's state-sanctioned child marriage is at odds with all Europe

The harm caused by child marriage is equally as stark. According to the UN agency, girls are six times more likely than boys to marry before their 18th birthday. Early marriage robs them of their childhood, forcing them to drop out of school.

Girls who marry young are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, and their children often suffer too. It is hardly surprising then that there has been a steady decline in child marriage across the world, as governments realise that it is a human rights violation.

READ MORE: Scottish Government consults on raising legal marriage age over grooming fears

‘Sexual exploitation of children’

In recent years, many low and middle-income countries with a tradition of early marriage have introduced legislation to protect their young people. For example, the Marriage Act of Malawi in 2017 makes it illegal for any girl under the age of 18 to marry and holds parents and other family members accountable and liable to prosecution.

Last year, Colombia agreed legislation to eradicate child marriage. The law, dubbed They are Girls, Not Wives, was finally passed after nearly two decades of campaigning by advocacy groups and eight previous failed attempts. “We do not want to continue seeing the systematic violence and sexual exploitation of children,” said congresswoman Jennifer Pedraza, a co-author of the Bill. “So it is a great message, not only for Colombia in terms of respect for the rights of boys and girls, but also for the world. Colombian childhood is important, we have to protect it and we have to care for it.”

Yet there are still some countries where child marriage, usually with parental consent, persists. Girls as young as 13 can marry in Iran, and in the Lebanon, where religious laws often govern marriage, girls as young as nine can be wed.

The US campaign group Unchained points out there are four US states where there is no minimum age for marriage: California, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Here in Europe, there are a few countries where marriage at 16 is allowed, but only with parental or judicial consent.

Marriage at 12?

But one country is an outlier, not only in Europe but across much of the world – Scotland, where child marriage between a boy and a girl or a same-sex couple is legal provided both parties are 16. No parental or judicial consent is required.

Historically, early marriage was normal in Scotland. In the 18th and 19th centuries, girls could marry as young as 12. It wasn’t until 1929 when the law was changed to increase the legal age to 16, where it remains to this day, despite the efforts of campaigners such as Together, an alliance of over 400 organisations and children’s rights experts, and the charity Barnardo’s Scotland.

This could be about to change, however, as Siobhian Brown, the community safety minister, has this week confirmed that the Scottish Government is finally going to consult on raising the legal age for marriage and civil partnerships to 18, in line with England and much of the rest of the world.

The announcement came in a parliamentary answer to Ash Regan, Holyrood’s sole Alba MSP, who is arguably Holyrood’s most successful campaigner for women’s rights of recent years. She is currently steering a Private Member’s Bill through parliament to criminalise the purchase of sex and was a leading critic of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. She describes child marriage as a “hidden crime” and wants to see new safeguards to protect youngsters.

The definition of a child

It remains something of a mystery why successive SNP governments, which have carefully positioned themselves as progressive, have been so reluctant to outlaw child marriage. It is not enough to argue that Scotland has a long-standing tradition of 16 being the age of consent. By that crude argument, child labour would still be the norm.

Nor was the decision to drop the voting age for Holyrood and local elections to 16 a justification for maintaining child marriage, given that it was arguably nothing more than a deeply cynical move to shore up the nationalist vote. Indeed, in Scots law and wider society, the generally accepted definition of a 'child' is anyone who has not yet turned 18, as set out in the 2014 Children and Young People (Scotland) Act.

And it was only last year that the Scottish Parliament unanimously incorporated the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law. Article one of the convention defines a child as “every human being below the age of 18”.

Do the right thing

At the time, the Scottish Government boasted that incorporating the UNCRC helped make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up, conveniently forgetting to add that while it was the first devolved government in the world to directly incorporate UNCRC, it continued to sanction child marriage.

My own mother, who died recently, married a fortnight before her 17th birthday. In 1950s rural Scotland, teenage brides were a common feature, particularly among poorer families, where marriage was considered an aspirational career choice for a girl.

But that was 70 years ago, and it is a stain on Scottish society that, in 2025, our girls are not offered the same protection as their peers in countries like Malawi or Colombia. There is no need for lengthy consultation or complex draft legislation on raising the age of legal marriage to 18 – it is simply the right thing to do.