Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the consequences of early marriage on girls' education, psychosocial, emotional developments and health. The present study ~as conducted in rural primary schools of Mecha district of West Gojjam zone, in Amhara region. The zone was purposely selected, for it is known for its practice of early marriage on girls than other zones except eats Gojjam, for the study grounding the baseline survey of the NCTPE (2003) that early marriage is more prevalent in this very zone than any other zones, except east Gojjam that has similar prevalence, in the region. The specific area of the study, Mecha district, was selected by lottery method. In the three randomly selected rural primary schools 238 girls married at a very young age, mean of their married age wa~ below 7 year~. This practice is totally against the newly revised family free and full consent ro whom they didn't prefer and love. The present study identified that this harmful traditional practice bampered many girls' education opportunity by exacerbating the drop out rates of girls, negatively influenced their psychosocial, emotional developments and health, and violated their rights to education, access to contraception and free spouse selection.