From advocacy to change: Colombia outlaws child marriage

Colombian lawmakers approved a bill in November 2024 to outlaw child marriage after 17 years of campaigning by advocacy groups and eight failed attempts to push legislation through the house and senate. 

According to UNICEF, 4.5 million girls and women in Colombia are married before the age of 18 – around one in four. Of these, one million were married before they were 15. Those opposed to the ban have cited tradition and parental rights, and many representatives of Indigenous communities were against the change. Gender inequality and economic dependence have also contributed to the prevalence of child marriage in the country.

TrustLaw, the Foundation’s pro bono legal service, facilitated legal research that then was used to bolster the advocacy efforts of two NGOs, Fundación Renacer – ECPAT Colombia and Save the Children Colombia, who were campaigning for child marriage to be outlawed and to align national laws with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  

The report has proven to be a powerful tool for NGOs who were campaigning for change, as it enabled organisations to develop their understanding of child marriage legislation in countries with similar social and legal structures to Colombia. The research was also presented to the Colombian House of Representatives as a way of informing them about how child marriage practices are governed across South America. 

In 2023, several leading law firms from the TrustLaw legal network, including Bruchou & Funes de Rioja, produced a report titled an “Analysis of Comparative Law on Child Marriage in Latin America” in collaboration with the two NGOs. The report compares and highlights the differences in legislation on child marriage in seven Latin American countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Peru. 

The report arose from a roundtable held by the Foundation in 2021 as part of its programme to combat modern slavery and human trafficking through ecosystem support in Colombia, India, Thailand and Malaysia. As part of this programme, we have offered free legal support to civil society organisations through TrustLaw, and also fostered cross-sector collaborations between companies, NGOs and the media.  

“Participating in this pro bono project has been a deeply enriching and rewarding experience for our law firm. The recent breakthrough in Colombia, with the approval of the law prohibiting child marriage after repeated failed attempts, fills us with pride. Knowing that, in some way, our small contribution was part of this transformative change toward a more just and equitable future motivates us to continue our active involvement in high-impact social initiatives.”

– Brucho & Funes de Rioja, law firm in Argentina

About the NGOs

Fundación Renacer is a nonprofit social service organisation with national coverage in Colombia. Its mission is to contribute to the eradication of commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, human trafficking and gender-based trafficking in persons through prevention programmes, political advocacy, technical assistance, research and specialised comprehensive care and re-integration of victims in society. 

Save the Children is an international organisation that defends and works for the rights of children. It has more than 250,000 employees working in 118 countries to improve children’s rights and to ensure their access to essential services including protection, education and health. In Colombia, Save the Children work with Indigenous populations, Afro-Colombians and migrant and refugee communities.