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Early marriage is also a form of sexual violence against girls. In many cases, these marriages are contracted in return for a large financial compensation to the family and constitute a form of sexual exploitation. A significant – albeit declining - proportion of women in Egypt get married before the age of 18. Data from the 2008 DHS reveals that 27.8% of women aged 25-49 were married by the age of 18. In poor areas, the marriage of under-age girls is even more widespread. A 2007 study found that girls in Upper Rural Egypt were far more likely than their urban counterparts to marry early, “followed rapidly by successive pregnancies, thus perpetuating the cycle of illiteracy and poverty into the next generation.”159 In addition, evidence has begun to surface of ‘summer’ marriages, “whereby young Egyptian girls from low-income families are married off to wealthy, visiting Arab tourists in return for a bride-price, but are often divorced at the end of the visit.” 160 While it is difficult to estimate the scale of the phenomenon due to the frequent forgery of age certification documents, the Ministry for Family and Population estimated that this phenomenon concerns over 70% of girls in some areas. 161 Since the 2008 legal amendment raising the legal age of marriage for girls to 18 years (to be the same as boys), a family counseling hotline, operated by the National Council for Women, received a large number of complaints relating to early marriage, which have resulted in the conviction of at least two religiously trained registrars (ma'zoun) for contracting the marriage of under-age girls.
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