Meta Oversight Board Calls for Stricter Rules on Removal of Child Marriage Content – ​​JURIST

The Meta Oversight Board confirmed Meta’s decision to remove an Instagram post on TuesdayIt shows an Iranian beautician preparing a 14-year-old girl for her wedding, citing the promotion of forced child marriages. The board also called on Meta to clarify in its guidelines that forced marriages include all child marriages involving persons under the age of 18.

The post in question dates back to January 2024 after a user posted a video on Instagram showing a beautician preparing a 14-year-old girl for her wedding and talking about the priority of marriage over education. The video reached 10.9 million views and was reported by 203 users. Initially, Meta did not find any policy violations, but after a second review by experts, the post was removed for violating the human exploitation policy. Meta later referred the case to the Oversight Board.

The board confirmed Meta’s decision to remove the content, but disagreed with the reasoning. Meta originally removed the video as part of its human exploitation policy, which aims to eliminate all forms of “human exploitation” but does not explicitly ban child marriage. However, the panel found that the video violated the Human Exploitation Community Standard Rule on Facilitating Child Marriage, saying: “[c]Child marriage, which disproportionately affects girls, is a form of forced marriage and gender-based violence and discrimination.” In line with its findings, the Board recommended Meta update its guidelines to explicitly state that forced marriage includes child marriage and defined it in the Consistent with international standards as involving people under 18 years of age.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights defines child marriage as “any marriage in which at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age.” Children’s rights are also protected by international conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Iran is a party. The convention recommends setting a minimum marriage age of 18, but Iran expressed reservations about what it considered as part of its ratification “contrary to Islamic Sharia law.” Despite these reservations, Iran has committed to eliminating harmful practices, including child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation, by 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goal 5.3. This is particularly relevant after a The 2023 UN Women report found that girls who married before the age of 18 were more likely to earn less over the course of their lives and live in poverty with their children.

Currently, Article 1041 of the Iranian Civil Code prohibits marriage before reaching “age of majority”. However, the age of majority for girls is set at 9 lunar years (8 years and 9 months) and for boys at 15 lunar years. Records from the Iranian Statistics Center show that at least 27,448 marriages involving children under 15 were registered between 2021 and 2022.