Cette publication est également disponible en :
With repeated displacement, the collapse of every aspect of life, and hunger and fear becoming daily realities for people in Gaza, marrying off young girls can no longer simply be considered an extension of a social practice that predated the war. In an increasing number of cases, it has become one of the harsh “coping mechanisms” resorted to by families pushed by the war to brink of survival. Marrying off a daughter means one less mouth to feed. It means a dowry that could help pay off a debt, a new ration card, maybe even a tent to shelter the family. It means a husband, a man the parents believe is capable of providing what they no longer can. In this equation, the girl is the party with the least agency and yet she is the one who pays the highest price.
A family that has lost its home, its income, and maybe even a breadwinner, and that is no longer able to secure food, water, or shelter, may see that marrying off a daughter is a way out, a solution. But this shift – whereby the decision comes from a place of need, not from choice – does not erase the inherent violence of the situation. A child is being thrust into marital, sexual, and reproductive responsibilities before she is fully developed herself, and thus her very body becomes part of the survival economy imposed by the war. Girls in Gaza now find themselves at the center of a compounded violence: a war that has robbed them of home, school, and safety, and an additional form of violence, born of that war, that prematurely pushes some of them out of childhood and into a life they did not choose.
Marrying off a daughter means one less mouth to feed. […] It means a husband, a man the parents believe is capable of providing what they no longer can. In this equation, the girl is the party with the least agency and yet she is the one who pays the highest price.
While rates of child marriage involving girls under 18 had previously been on the decline in Gaza, the genocidal war being waged has reversed this trend. We at Medfeminiswiya have gathered three firsthand accounts revealing how factors like a tent, a sack of flour, or the fear of loss can shape a decision that defines a young girl’s entire life.
It is worth noting that more than 16,000 girls were killed in the Israeli war on Gaza between October 2023 and December 2025, according to figures from UN Women – figures that the agency noted might be an undercount.
We spoke with Walaa al-Satari, a feminist and human rights activist from Gaza who works with women and girls, about the phenomenon of child marriage. She began by sharing a story so personal that it makes it impossible to view this issue as just a set of statistics: about three months prior to this interview, her own cousin, only 14, was married off. Al-Satari notes that her cousin still likes to play, go outside, and spend time with other children; at 14, she is supposed to be in eighth grade. Yet, like other Gazans, she already carries the trauma of war, having lived through bombardment and displacement and lost loved ones. And now she finds herself expected to be a wife, responsible for a new household, a new family.
“Before the war, indicators were moving in a different direction,” al-Satari adds. “In 2022, the rate of registered marriages involving girls under 18 in Gaza had dropped to 17.9%, down from over 28% in 2009. But the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is now pointing to a rise in the marriage of minors: in just four months of 2025, marriage permits were granted to at least 400 girls aged 14 to 16, and actual figures are likely even higher than that, given the collapse of registration systems and the fact that some marriages are concluded informally.”
When hunger enters the marriage contract
Al-Satari explains that while child marriage existed as a practice even before the war, it was the war that dismantled the safeguards that once curbed it. Schools and universities have been destroyed, families displaced and scattered, and the ability of courts, police, and women’s and human rights organizations to reach people has severely diminished.
During periods of military incursions and the severing of the northern Gaza Strip from the south, marriages were often concluded verbally, without official registration or adequate age verification. Today, al-Satari notes, courts and institutions find themselves facing wives who were children at the time of their marriage – some of whom have since become mothers – while their rights and those of their children remain undocumented and unprotected.
“In 2022, the rate of registered marriages involving girls under 18 in Gaza had dropped to 17.9%, down from over 28% in 2009. But UNFPA is now pointing to a rise in the marriage of minors: in just four months of 2025, marriage permits were granted to at least 400 girls aged 14 to 16, and actual figures are likely even higher than that.”
But the collapse of the legal system is only part of the picture. The other part is an economy crushed by war: after the poverty rate in Gaza reached approximately 64% in mid-2023, the World Bank indicates that the entire population of the Strip is now living in poverty.
Al-Satari paints the picture for us. “As aid systems shifted during the war, separating one’s ration card after marriage, or securing an independent allocation, became an added incentive for some families. Mass weddings were also linked to aid, tents, or financial assistance, turning marriage for some into a gateway to resources that were otherwise inaccessible.”
Mohammed Youssef al-Najjar, a lawyer and legal consultant practicing before Gaza’s Sharia, civil, and military courts, notes that he hears these reasons cited within the courts themselves. “In my line of work, those to be wed and their families speak of tents, food aid, gas canisters, and other necessities as factors driving marriage. I witness marriage contracts being concluded for very young girls, some no older than 15, on an almost daily basis.”
“Even though a Palestinian decree-law issued in 2019 set the legal age of marriage at 18, enforcement in Gaza has remained governed by a different legal reality,” al-Najjar continues. “UN sources indicate that the Sharia Judicial Council sets the minimum age at 15 lunar years for females and 16 lunar years for males, while allowing for judicial approval of marriages involving individuals under 18.”
Al-Najjar believes this loophole must be closed and calls for a ban on the marriage of those under 18, whether through a legislative amendment or a binding judicial directive to the courts.
The concept of “propriety” in a tent with no doors
A recurring term in the testimonies of al-Satari and al-Najjar is al-satr, a concept that encompasses modesty, privacy, and protection from public scrutiny. In displacement camps, where bathrooms are shared, water queues are long, and families live in cramped proximity, households fear for their daughters’ safety – from harassment, assault, or even the “judgment of society.” Al-Satari, who has been displaced 11 times and lived in various camps, knows the reality of living in a tent all too well: a sheet of fabric or plastic does not create privacy, nor does it create safety.
In this environment, a husband may be perceived within the family imagination as a protector, and his family as a surrogate haven, particularly if the girl’s parents have been killed or were forced to travel for medical treatment, leaving some of their children behind. Al-Satari notes that the fear of a girl being left alone without a provider has driven some families to consider marriage as a guarantee that a second family will take over her protection.
But the crucial question that comes up here is what kind of protection requires a girl to sacrifice her childhood, her body, and her education in order to be “safe.”
Protection based on marrying off a child does not eliminate the danger. It merely shifts it from the public sphere into the institution of marriage, where the girl’s authority over her decisions becomes weaker and her ability to leave is severely diminished.
Asala Kallab, a feminist media professional and community facilitator from Gaza City, describes this phenomenon as a “negative coping mechanism.” Together with al-Satari, she launched the “Child-Mother” initiative in response to the intersecting humanitarian, legal, and social crises threatening young girls. The initiative works with girls aged 10 to 18, providing awareness, psychological support, and activities in schools and shelters.
For Kallab, the decision to marry off young girls cannot be reduced to a family being “unaware”; it is the result of a convergence of poverty, insecurity, and the collapse of education and protection systems. She describes early marriage as a “barrier” that cuts off a girl’s educational trajectory, transforming her from a student into a “child-mother” burdened by responsibilities far beyond her capacity.
Protection based on marrying off a child does not eliminate the danger. It merely shifts it from the public sphere into the institution of marriage.
A girl’s body in the face of pregnancy and war
The risks are compounded when early marriage quickly leads to pregnancy. According to UNFPA, nearly 10% of newly recorded pregnancies in Gaza in December 2025 involved adolescent girls. UNFPA data also indicates that adolescent birth rates have more than doubled compared to pre-war levels, occurring at a time when access to obstetric and newborn care has been critically compromised.
For a girl already suffering from malnutrition, pregnancy is not an event separate from the war. Al-Satari speaks of anemia, miscarriage, hemorrhaging, obstructed labor, and pregnancy complications, all occurring in an environment where hospitals and women’s health services have been severely damaged. Yet the impact extends beyond the physical: the girl bears the trauma of war and is then burdened with marital, familial, and sexual responsibilities far beyond her years. Al-Satari notes that some girls face depression, isolation, and constant fear.
Education ranks foremost among the losses that are difficult to recover. “Returning to school after marriage and pregnancy is possible in theory but rare in practice. Deprived of educational credentials or skills and employment opportunities, girls become economically dependent on their husbands or their husbands’ families,” al-Satari says, encapsulating the link between money and power with the adage, “He who has money has the power.”
In a society where war has devastated the economy, the loss of education becomes more than just a personal tragedy. It lays the groundwork for a generation of women less capable of achieving independence, rejecting violence, or determining the course of their own lives. And dependency extends beyond the financial realm. Drawing on her work and her own experience of displacement, al-Satari points to instances of physical, psychological, and verbal abuse inflicted upon young wives by their husbands or their husbands’ families. In an environment where safe spaces are rare, a young girl may find no safe haven to voice her grievances, and it may be her own family pressuring her to stay in the situation. So what was presented to her as “protection” effectively turns out to be just another source of fear.
