The Secret Life of Criminal Law: Child Marriage Prosecution in Europe
 

This project integrates an examination of the international law on the practice of child marriage (or early-age marriage), with a detailed study of its domestic adjudication in Europe. Although formally condemned by the international communities as an outlived custom and a violation of human rights, child marriage is still very much a contemporary global phenomenon. The study investigates judicial attitudes to child marriage, and its treatment by the law. Research shows that courts tend to be faced with child marriage most commonly during family, immigration or criminal proceedings. The case law that is produced reflects its jurisdiction’s legislative, political, geographic and demographic make-up.

This interdisciplinary project employs the ethnographic method in the study of courts’ work. It uses as its case-studies Bulgarian criminal courts. Bulgaria is an example of a jurisdiction in which child marriage is criminalized, which is not the case is many other European countries. The discussion is framed against the background of current trends in Europe towards criminal law reform that reconceptualizes children’s agency and children’s victimology. Data generated through the combined application of doctrinal legal research and anthropological methodology shows that this interdisciplinary approach permits more complex, evidence-based insights into the effectiveness of measures currently in place to combat harmful practices against children.