Posted: Monday, March 8, 2021 11:58 Ten million more girls face the risk of child marriage because of the COVID-19 pandemic, warns the UN agency focused on children UNICEF Canada. In the decade before the pandemic, progress had been made in reducing marriages of girls by 15 percent. This drove the risk from one in four girls married early to one in five, representing some 25 million marriages averted. “COVID-19 is threatening the fragile gains made to advance girls’ rights,” said Rowena Pinto, Chief Program Officer at UNICEF Canada. “Shuttered schools, isolation from friends, and rising poverty have added fuel to a fire the world was already struggling to put out. International Women’s Day reminds us that we can and we must extinguish child marriage.”