UNICEF and UNFPA have joined forces to launch the Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage. The Global Programme will:

• Empower adolescent girls at risk of, and affected by, marriage.
• Work with families and communities to promote positive behaviours towards girls.
• Ensure that health, education, protection and other systems are responsive to the needs of girls.
• Support governments in creating a positive legal and policy environment in relation to child marriage
• Use and build the data and evidence on what works to end child marriage

In South Asia, the programme works in Bangladesh, India and Nepal to end child marriage and empower adolescent girls, Nepal has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Asia – for both girls and boys. Although the legal age of unions for both sexes is 20, more than a third of young women aged 20-24 report that they were married by the age of 18, and just over one in ten by 15.