GENDER EQUALITY A DEMAND FOR A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Resumo

According to Care International, one third of the girls in the world got married before they were eighteen and UNICEF predicts that more than 150 million girls will get married before 2030. The pandemic crisis of COVID-19 aggravated the issue. Is said that the percentage of child marriage increased during the last year and a half and, mainly young girls are being trapped in arranged marriages, being out of school and having their entire future compromised. The issue in not simple, besides the cultural and religious back grounds, economic and social problems, aggravated by the pandemic, influence some family decisions to arrange marriages for their young girls. In a poorer economic cycle families also decide which children should and can go to school. Usually, male children are chosen. To stop this cycle, that valorizes man in an unjustified asymmetry of opportunities based on gender, is a common goal that our future, as humanity, depends on. Eradicating all forms of discrimination and violence based on gender is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, target by 2030. Nevertheless, we can recognize some incongruous signs. For example, the year of 2018 ended with the Bundesgerichtshof, BGH stating that the new law forbidding child marriage could be unconstitutional. This position is seen, by many, as a gateway to legitimize child marriage based on the Sharia Law. But if there is negative criticism there is also who states that the decision is a sign of globalization and respect for cultural diversity. In this context we propose to engage a debate about the strategies of action and the difficulties fulfilling the policies.  Human Dignity as a placeholder, a (tendential) universal principle and a “lighthouse” in the critical approach the Human Rights discussion that the subject imposes in this matter framed by, sometimes antagonist, universalism and cultural relativism.