Every Last Child Country Spotlight: Tanzania

Save the Children is campaigning at an international and national level to achieve the greatest impact for children with the Every Last Child Campaign.

Child marriage endangers the emotional and physical wellbeing of girls by prematurely forcing them into sexual activity and exposing them to systematic sexual violence. An appreciation is growing globally of the reality of child marriage as a serious human rights violation that undermines the enjoyment of the full range of fundamental rights and liberties to which children are entitled. Child brides are pushed out of childhood and forced into extremely exploitative conditions which compel them to perform adult roles despite having the capacities of children and, in fact, still being children, in all respects – developmentally, biologically, physically, psychologically and emotionally.

Tanzania has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world. About 37% of the women aged 20-24 were married/in union before age 18. Data shows a 4% decline in this figure since 2004. Tanzanian women on average get married more than five years earlier than Tanzanian men.

Read the full Every Last Child campaign report here.