The Marriage of Minors in Palestine

Legal marriage age has been 15 years for both males and females for many years. In the period between 1995-2019, around 200 thousand children have been married in accordance with article (5) of the Personal Status Law of 1976, and over 95% of marriages were of minor girls. Two years after the adoption of Law by Decree No. (21) of 2019 amending the legislations regulating personal status by raising the legal marriage age to 18 in article (2), over 10 thousand children under the legal marriage age have been married in the period between 2020-2021 in accordance with exceptions allowed by the Law by Decree. The marriage of minors continued in 2021 at an accelerated rate, and the number of cases increased from 5,102 in 2020 to 5,384 in 2021.