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.

Coordinator at Girls’ Power Initiative, GPI, Nigeria, Ms Ndodeye Bassey-Obongha, was invited to speak on the panel alongside World YWCA General Secretary, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, and Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Programme, UN Women, Mr. John Hendra among others.

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. Furthermore, the panel address the initiatives for ending child marriage, and the challenges to be overcome collectively to ensure positive lastly impact.

For many of the 75 million girls worldwide who do not go to school, child marriage is a significant barrier to education and increases the likelihood of physical and mental abuse as well as coercion into sexual relationships where early pregnancy puts their health at risk.

Child marriage is not included in the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, MDGs that expire in 2015, and organisations like World YWCA, Girls Not Brides, Plan International and activists around the world are lobbying and advocating for child marriage to be included in the Sustainable Development Goals -post 2015 agenda.