Portugal ranks eighth on the list of 144 countries in terms of opportunities for girls, ahead of countries such as Switzerland, Spain, Germany, the UK and well ahead of the United States.
According to the new analysis by Save the Children that reveals the scale of the threat posed by child marriage to education, health and children’s safety, one girl under 15 is married every seven seconds.
The report released on Tuesday by Save the Children, Every Last Girl: Free to live, free to learn, free from harm, has ranked countries in an index from the best to worst country in which to be a girl, based on child marriage, schooling, teen pregnancy, maternal deaths and number of female parliamentarians.
Ahead of Portugal, in order, are Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Slovenia.
Portugal could have ranked higher, but its low proportion of women to men MPs, and high adolescent fertility saw it drop slightly down the list.
The country does however have a near perfect score when it comes to the level of secondary education enjoyed by both genders, while Portugal also has one of the lowest child marriage rates in the world.
Countries at the bottom of the index include Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia, many of which have high rates of child marriage. Countries at the top include Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands and Belgium.
“Child marriage starts a cycle of disadvantage that denies girls the most basic rights to learn, develop and be children,” said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, CEO of Save the Children International in a statement published this week.
“Girls who marry too early often can’t attend school, and are more likely to face domestic violence, abuse and rape. They fall pregnant and are exposed to STIs including HIV. They also bear children before their bodies are fully prepared, which can have devastating consequences on their and their baby’s health.”
The international community has pledged to end child marriage by 2030, but if current trends continue, the total number of women married in childhood will grow from more than 700 million today to around 950 million by 2030, and to 1.2 billion by 2050.
The report also reveals that girls affected by conflict are more likely to become child brides, with many refugee families marrying off their daughters as a safety or coping mechanism, such as Syrian girls in Lebanon.
Girls from poor families are more likely to be married early than their richer peers.
In Nigeria, 40 percent of the poorest girls are married by 15, compared to three percent of the richest girls.
India has the highest number of child marriages of any country, partly owing to the large size of its population, with 47 percent of girls – around 24.6 million – married under 18.
Girls also suffer most during humanitarian crises such as the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, where schools shutting down led to an estimated 14,000 teen pregnancies.
Save the Children runs a range of programmes that support the most disadvantaged girls around the world. It is calling on governments and donors to invest in girls’ education and life chances, to help bring an end to child marriage and gender discrimination.