On 25th November 2023, the Peruvian government passed a change to the country's marriage law to prohibit and eliminate marriage with minors under the age of 18. 

This brief Impact Case Study charts the pivotal role Young Lives evidence has played in directly informing this important legislative change. Our evidence was directly cited in the Parliamentary Bill presented to Congress on 29 September 2022, and the Young Lives Peru team presented findings at a Congressional roundtable on 6 December 2022. As the children in our study have grown up, Young Lives documented their experiences of young marriage and early parenthood in our recent YMAPs study. This evidence has also been reported in Peru's national media. 

This law change has the potential to protect thousands of young girls from child marriage – and to discourage informal unions and cohabitation with minors. It is an important step, but wider societal change to tackle entrenched gender norms is also vital.  Read more from Young Lives' Vanessa Rojas here. 

For all Young Lives impact visit our webpage here.