Young Brazilian Wives: Child Marriage, Girls' Marginalisation, and Agency
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Abstract
In Brazil, legal and political discussions on childhood and adolescence are usually guided by the ideal of pure, innocent, and vulnerable girls. This construction has historically served to both censor the exercise of child and adolescent sexual agency and legitimize the exclusion of unruly girls who do not correspond to the envisioned profile that should be protected. That is the case for Brazilian young wives, a large but invisible group of girls continuously neglected by child protection discourses, services, and policies in the country. This paper aims to introduce and explore the current scenario of child marriage in Brazil by overviewing the national legal norms surrounding the practice, summarizing two relevant locally produced qualitative research on the subject, carried out by Instituto Promundo and Plan International Brasil, analysing available national quantitative data on the extent and key characteristics of early marriage, specifically IBGE's 2010 Demographic Census and 2021 Civil Registry Statistics, and problematizing what is understood as the young wives' agency. Its main proposition is that a more nuanced, dynamic, and critical understanding of children's agency is needed for truly comprehending the practice of child marriage in Brazil and developing public services and policies that both prevent it and aid young wives in their daily lives.
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This Zenodo record is a permanently preserved version of a Structured PREreview. You can view the complete PREreview at https://prereview.org/reviews/13896161.
Does the introduction explain the objective of the research presented in the preprint? Partly Although the sixth paragraph of the introduction explicitly mentions the research objectives, the explanation was incomplete and did not clearly convey to the reader the focal importance and main objective to be achieved through that research and the publication of that article.Are the methods well-suited for this research? Somewhat appropriate The research is based on official data from the …This Zenodo record is a permanently preserved version of a Structured PREreview. You can view the complete PREreview at https://prereview.org/reviews/13896161.
Does the introduction explain the objective of the research presented in the preprint? Partly Although the sixth paragraph of the introduction explicitly mentions the research objectives, the explanation was incomplete and did not clearly convey to the reader the focal importance and main objective to be achieved through that research and the publication of that article.Are the methods well-suited for this research? Somewhat appropriate The research is based on official data from the Brazilian government and specialized literature on the topic "child marriage and abuse", but I feel that there was a lack of a specific chapter or topic clarifying to the reading public which metrics should be used to prepare the premises and conclusion of the research presented in the article.Are the conclusions supported by the data? Somewhat supported The conclusion of the article was written in line with the factual scenario demonstrated by the data presented in the research. However, I feel that the recommendations made and the textual closure of the article were somewhat generic, without the depth that the seriousness of the topic requires.Are the data presentations, including visualizations, well-suited to represent the data? Somewhat appropriate and clear The article has few tables and graphs tabulating data to be compared. There is a lot of data that is transcribed in paragraphs, perhaps it would be easier to visualize if they were inserted into graphs and tables.How clearly do the authors discuss, explain, and interpret their findings and potential next steps for the research? Somewhat clearly Although there are no inconsistencies between the data presented in the research and the author's position in relation to the topic, I feel that the author could explore the topic better and more completely, the positions are somewhat generic and do not allow for the necessary depth, considering such a serious topic.Is the preprint likely to advance academic knowledge? Somewhat likely The preprint contains interesting information that is sufficiently based on statistics and scientific literature, therefore I consider it suitable for advancing academic knowledge.Would it benefit from language editing? No The language and vocabulary used in the article are appropriate for a scientific textWould you recommend this preprint to others? Yes, but it needs to be improved Yes, I would recommend it, as the text of the article deals with a topic of great importance and urgency, and is based on solid data, even though the research writing could be better elaborated and the topics covered with greater depth and less common sense.Is it ready for attention from an editor, publisher or broader audience? Yes, after minor changes The article needs some corrections and further elaboration in relation to some points of view defended by the authorCompeting interests
The author declares that they have no competing interests.
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