Early or Forced Marriage and the Roles of Primary Healthcare

Abstract

Early marriage is the marriage done before or during adolescence, about 60% to 70% girls are forced to married early ages in several African and Asian countries. Even their basic human rights are not provided to them; these resulted several psychological and physiological health problems. The purpose of this paper is to narratively review the health problems/issues inherent in forced marriage and enunciate the roles of the public health care in ameliorating them. There was review of the health effects of early marriage grouped into psychological, pathophysiological, antenatal malaria and socio-cultural injustice, recommendations on how the public health-care roles can be useful tools to combating these unhealthy practices fostered by obsolete traditional beliefs and gross ignorance from both the victims and their parents. From the review of the previous studies, though no previous study has been documented in my locations for the study, there were great negative impactful health effects of early marriage on women, it was also obvious that the public health care providers can be vital in controlling or reducing these age-long anomalies. The grave dangers of early marriage on women were elucidated, its prevalence, the adverse consequences on the women as obviously observed were critically examined with enthusiasm and concerns. Therefore, the recommendations as per the roles of primary healthcare which includes teaching, surveillance, screening etc., in mitigating should be seriously adopted to curb the trend.