Kerstin Hamann (2024)
The International Journal of Human Rights
Kerstin Hamann is University Pegasus Professor, Associate Dean University of Central Florida and Global Fellow for LawTransform. Her research focuses on the political role of organized labor in Western Europe, Spanish politics, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
ABSTRACT
Child marriage, considered a human rights violation, occurs not just in the Global South, but is also legal in wealthy western countries. Why did Spain legally restrict child marriage in 2015? This is puzzling because by 2015, the incidence of child marriage had sharply declined; national news media rarely covered the issue, which also lacked social movement advocacy; and Spain had ratified international conventions pushing for an end to child marriage years earlier without implementing changes domestically. How, then, did a low salience issue result in legal reform in 2015? We argue that a critical actor approach, coupled with international norms diffusion and issue framing and bundling, can account for the timing, the lack of opposition, and the success of the reform. Our qualitative analysis shows that international human rights actors pushed for raising the legal marriage age. The reform itself was bundled with a broader reform package to protect children and enacted as part of a reform of Spain’s Civil Code. Furthermore, child marriage was framed as having little significance in Spain, thus minimising potential opposition. We compare the successful restriction to child marriage in 2015 with a failed attempt in 2018 to outlaw remaining exceptions to child marriage.
You can read the full article there:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2024.2423342