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<p>The Government is extremely concerned about reports of an increase in arranged
child marriages among Syrian refugees in Jordan. A UNICEF report in January 2014 indicated
a rise in the proportion of Syrian refugee girls who had married early (defined as
before the age of 18) in Jordan, from 12% in 2011 to 32% in the first quarter of 2014.</p><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Child protection is a central part of DFID’s humanitarian response
to the Syrian crisis and we provide multi-year funding to UNICEF to support their
work in this area. In addition we also support organisations such as CARE, International
Rescue Committee (IRC) and UNHCR. These interventions all have a child protection
component. UNHCR and UNFPA co-chair the ‘forced and early marriage’ taskforce, which
has developed a joint action plan to reduce the risk and mitigate the consequence
of child marriage and forced marriage in Jordan, and to build the capacity of local
organisations to tackle this issue. The UK also successfully lobbied the Government
of Jordan to sign up to the Girl Summit 2014 Charter which is a global movement to
end Female Genital Mutilation and Child, Early and Forced Marriage for all girls everywhere
within a generation.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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