THE United Nations General Assembly, UNGASS, has held it’s first-ever panel discussion on child marriage in New York. The panel, requested by last year’s first General Assembly resolution on child marriage, focused on the post-2015 development agenda and the development costs of child marriage.

The UNGASS panel aimed to address these issues, by highlighting the human rights and development impacts of child, early and forced marriages, with particular emphasis on the post-2015 agenda. It would also address initiatives for ending child marriage, and ways to collectively  ensure positive impact.

As many as  75 million girls worldwide do not go to school,  yet child marriage is not included in the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs. Organisations and activists around the world are advocating for child marriage to be included in the Sustainable Development Goals -post 2015 agenda.