Girls in Gaza forced into child marriage as Israel’s genocide fuels hunger and displacement
Enas Abu Ghayad reports in Mondoweiss on 30 September 2026:
Safaa’s face bears marks of fatigue and exhaustion far beyond her 19 years. Squeezed into a torn nylon tent on the sandy coast of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, months into a supposed ceasefire that has done little to ease the hardships of her people, she sits at the entrance with hollow eyes and brittle nails — the visible signs of malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. She is also pregnant, waiting to give birth while gripped by unrelenting fear.
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Before October 2023, child marriage in Gaza had been declining. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the rate of girls married under 18 had fallen from 22.2 percent in 2015 to 17.9 percent in 2022. The war reversed that progress entirely. A 2024 UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] survey found that 71 percent of respondents reported growing pressure to marry girls under 18, driven by displacement, poverty, and the collapse of protective systems.
“Girls in Gaza are not choosing marriage. They are being driven into it by hunger, fear, and displacement,” UNFPA Country Representative Nestor Owomuhangi said in April 2025. As such, childhood marriage can put young girls in precarious conditions where they are unable to make educated decisions about their future.
“Under continuous bombardment and repeated displacement, I see parents pushed toward excruciating, zero-option scenarios,” Walaa al-Othmani, a field specialist with the al-Shafi Association for Family Development, told Mondoweiss. “Through my direct work with these families, I witness how extreme deprivation drives them to make the most painful decision: marrying off their young daughters.”