The girl was in a pastel-pink jumper under the tree, twirling her pen. She was pondering the question: what would you tell a girl of your age who’s in a relationship?

“To be careful with her husband,” she said, hesitating, perhaps because the question made her uncomfortable. Then, decisively, she continued: “And even if he mistreats her, she has to look after herself.”

She was 12 — but in her Indigenous Wichí community, 15 hours’ Jeep drive from the city of Formosa, she was already familiar with the prospect of her friends going to live with older men.

The girl’s words were part of a study by the nonprofit Foundation for Studies and Research on Women (FEIM, by its Spanish acronym) which found that in Argentina, 4.7% of girls between the ages of 14 and 18 are either married or living with a partner.

Internationally, child marriage is considered a form of gender-based violence: it goes hand in hand with sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancy and interrupts girls’ right to an education. 

It is closely linked with poverty, and FEIM researchers fear it could worsen as the number of families living below the breadline soars. But the issue, which is most prevalent in remote, rural areas, is rarely debated in Argentina’s urban social and political mainstream, and the government does not collect data on how many girls are in this situation.

It is most common in northeastern Argentina, affecting 7.2% of girls aged 14-18 in Misiones province, 6.9% in Chaco, and 6.4% in Formosa, the study found. However, the figure is also above 5% — more than one in 20 — in Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, and Santiago del Estero provinces.

The study was based on data from the 2010 census, when girls aged 14 or older were asked for the first time whether they were living with a partner. It could not be updated with the 2022 census because of differences in the questions asked and gaps in the data.

Under Argentine law, girls cannot marry until they turn 18 unless they have the permission of their parents or a judge. In most cases, these girls are living with partners in what FEIM calls child unions. 

The organization highlights that the 4.7% rate is higher than for countries such as Qatar, where the rate is 4%. Nonetheless, they believe the figure is an underestimate. “When you speak to key figures like gynecologists, health center directors and schoolteachers, they say, ‘We see this every day,’” said Cecilia Correa, a FEIM psychologist who co-authored the report.

“And they’re talking about girls in fifth or sixth grade. We’re not talking [ages] 15 and up. We’re talking from 12 down.”

‘It’s naturalized’

Girls living with partners is strongly linked with poverty — but it’s not the only factor, according to FEIM president Mabel Bianco. “These more intense hotspots that we’ve found are where there are cultural and socio-familial factors at play. We’re talking about rural populations in very isolated places. In many cases, the grandmothers, the mothers, they were all in early unions, so it’s naturalized.”

More disturbingly, girls are sometimes sent to live with older men because it is seen as a way of protecting them from sexual abuse at the hands of outsiders. In northern Argentina’s Indigenous communities, it is common for non-Indigenous men to come to the community and rape women and children, sometimes in groups. 

This problem is called chineo by campaigning groups such as Movimiento de Mujeres y Diversidades Indígenas por el Buen Vivir, who are campaigning for such attacks to be made a hate crime, doubly aggravated on grounds of race and gender. 

Others argue that the term is racist, since it derives from chinitas, a term non-Indigenous men sometimes apply to Indigenous women that directly translates as “little Chinese women.” They emphasize that Indigenous women also experience sexual violence within their communities.

Unlike some countries in the Asia-Pacific region where girls are sometimes sold, Bianco said, families in Argentina send their daughters to live with a partner because they believe it will protect them from abuse and help them to escape grinding poverty. 

“They get out of poverty, sometimes, but not by much, [and they] end up in teenage pregnancy and abuse, in many cases,” she said, noting that girls may be abused by other members of their partner’s household. 

While children were often sent to live with wealthier families in the past, girls today are not necessarily partnered with men with higher socioeconomic status — especially when the man is close to her age, Bianco said. 

‘You could die’

Correa was shocked by the frankness of the girls she spoke to during fieldwork for the study. “The perception of the risk of violence that the girls showed, even without us asking about specifics […] We thought they might say, [girls] shouldn’t move out, they should keep studying, but no, the discourse was different. It was, there’s a risk you could die, you could have a pregnancy you don’t want. I mean, they were 12!”

In some cases, Correa noticed, there was community pressure to partner young girls off as soon as their periods start. Pressure from the Evangelical church for girls to be paired up before they can choose their sexual partners also plays a role, she added. “These are things that are happening now, not 40 years ago,” she said. 

“There’s a question, first, of control, and of not giving her the capacity to access the information she needs to make decisions.”

Fighting early child unions is key to preventing unwanted pregnancies and abuse, Bianco and Correa said.  

In February, with support from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Argentina, FEIM presented an art installation called “the pink house” in the University of Buenos Aires law faculty. Its location — front and center in the faculty’s grand entranceway — highlights the problems with a lack of gender perspective in the fields of law and health, Bianco explained at the installation’s launch event. 

Approximately the height of a person, it is draped in pink and lilac cloth and white lace. Teddies, dolls, and toys are attached to the walls. A 360° view of the house is viewable here.

Inside were two wooden chairs. Next to one is a pair of men’s shoes. Next to the other, a pair of shoes for a little girl. Between them, one word in capital letters glows from a box: “ELEGIR” (choose). Girls’ power to choose, the researchers say, is at the heart of this issue.

“For girls to know their rights and be able to decide, even that is a big deal,” Correa said. “They come from a situation of vulnerability, extreme poverty, violence, malnutrition, hunger, and extremely strong gender roles and stereotypes. You have to give those girls the tools to decide.”