Toronto, September 2025 – Bolivia has become the 14th country in Latin America to ban child marriage after girls across the country and Save the Children joined a campaign to criminalise the practice.
Bolivia’s parliament this week passed legislation banning marriages and civil unions with children following a four-year campaign by Save the Children, IPAS Bolivia, Coordinadora de la Mujer and other local NGOs.
Under the previous law, children aged 16 and 17 could marry if they had authorization from parents or guardians. The new bill ends this legal exception.
The bill, which amends Bolivia’s 2014 Family and Family Procedure Code, criminalises the act of marrying or entering a union with a child under the age of 18. Officials who register marriages involving minors can face up to four years in jail.
Since 2022, Save the Children has carried out research, engaged with political groups in Bolivia, and worked with girls themselves to reveal the scale of child marriages and encourage speaking up on the issue.
About 3% of girls in Bolivia are forced to marry before the age of 15, while 22% – over one in five – are forced into unions before the age of 18, according to official data. [1]
Between 2014 and 2023, there were over 4,800 marriages registered in Bolivia involving adolescents aged 16 and 17—many with partners two or three times their age. There have been cases documented of girls as young as 12 being married under deeply concerning circumstances. [2]
Childhood marriage or unions, expose girls to risks, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, domestic violence, early pregnancies and school drop-out, with children from indigenous communities, peri-urban and rural areas most affected.
Despite a decline in child marriage, the practice remains widespread, with about one in five girls married in childhood across the globe, according to the UN. [2] This is despite a commitment by countries under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to end child marriage by 2030.
Marianela Montes de Oca, Save the Children Bolivia Country Director, said:
“This is a historic moment and an extraordinary achievement for children across Bolivia who along with IPAS Bolivia, Coordinadora de la Mujer, Comunidad de Derechos Humanos and civil society have campaigned for their rights.
“The approval of this law marks a new reality for over 4 million children across Bolivia – half of whom are girls – and represents a fundamental victory in the fight for the rights of children and adolescents.
“But our work does not stop with this legislation. Government officials, civil society, communities and families must now work together to ensure that the text of the law becomes the lived reality of every child in Bolivia by ensuring that the law is adhered to and that the underlying causes of child, early, and forced marriages and unions are tackled.”
Save the Children has been working in Bolivia since 1985 with a focus on education, health and nutrition, child protection, child poverty, governance, and humanitarian emergencies.
[1] Data from Bolivia’s national civil registry system, SIRECI.
[2] Data from the Ombudsman’s Office of Bolivia (Defensoría del Pueblo), an independent governmental institution for human rights in Bolivia.
[3] https://www.unicef.org/protection/child-marriage
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