“I Was Expected To Become a Wife Overnight.”

Reports of forced and child marriage in Gaza rose 123 percent in the first half of 2026. Behind that statistic are young, vulnerable girls being married off as families grow increasingly desperate.

A recent United Nations report paints a troubling picture of life for women and girls in Gaza. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) documents rising levels of gender-based violence, including an increase in forced and child marriages.

The report notes:

“Adolescent girls aged 12 to 17 are increasingly facing forced marriage, sexual exploitation, and abuse.”

One of those girls is Bissan. She was just 16 when she was forced to marry:

“My father was killed during the war, and we lost our home and all support. We were displaced and struggling to survive. Soon after, I was forced to marry because my family believed it was the only way to protect and provide for us. I was expected to become a wife overnight. When I tried to escape, I was forced to return. I did not want this life.”

Bissan is not alone. Reported cases of gender-based violence in Gaza rose by 60 percent during the first six months of 2026.

Meanwhile, reports of forced and child marriage increased by 123 percent between January and June.

In part, the increase may reflect improved reporting. Before the ceasefire last October, the war made it difficult for many cases of gender-based violence, forced marriage, and child marriage to be reported at all.

But the effects are clearly spreading, and as reconstruction stalls, women and girls are paying the price.

According to UN Protection Cluster monitoring for the first quarter of 2026, gender based violence affected 53 percent of those who they assessed. Meanwhile, child marriage affected 46 percent of assessed households.

The war in Gaza has left its people in a very tough predicament. As of this month, 65 percent of households are still living in tents or makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands are living in low-lying displacement sites near the shoreline, vulnerable to flooding when it rains in winter.

The economic picture is similarly bleak. Gaza’s unemployment rate stood at 78 percent last year, according to UNCTAD data. That’s the highest unemployment rate anywhere in the world.

According to a report from Al Jazeera earlier this year:

For many young men and women, jobs are nowhere to be found, forcing them to pace the streets or wait endlessly for a chance to work.

“I’ve been looking for a job for months,” Mohammed Shatat told Al Jazeera. “Even temporary work is hard to find. Every day feels the same… I go from place to place, asking, hoping, but there’s nothing.”

And although the ceasefire meant that significantly more food and humanitarian aid started entering Gaza—with aid entering the strip increasing over 50% according to the World Health Organization—the latest IPC assessment still projects that more than 1.4 million people—around 67 percent of Gaza’s population are facing crisis levels of food insecurity.

And yet, in recent months, a very different picture of Gaza has increasingly been presented.

Since the ceasefire took effect late last year, a number of Israeli officials and commentators have argued that the scale of Gaza’s hunger crisis was exaggerated—and in some cases that the famine declared in 2025 never really existed at all.

That argument gained momentum after a nutrition survey conducted in June found relatively low levels of acute malnutrition among children in areas of Gaza researchers could access. Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said the findings showed that the “false narrative” of famine was falling apart.

The trouble is that not only does this narrative not match up with the statistics on food security from the IPC, but it also doesn’t fit with the horrific reality of women and girls being traded for food, either.

And the issue isn’t solely about getting more food into Gaza. It’s also about making sure that the food that gets in is properly distributed, and not stolen by Hamas or other militant groups.

In July this year, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Ramiz Alakbarov, accused Hamas of obstructing humanitarian operations. He said armed personnel affiliated with Hamas had forcibly entered a food distribution point in Jabalia and a World Food Programme warehouse, where two truck drivers were reportedly assaulted. Alakbarov said the episode was not isolated, but reflected an “increasingly dangerous pattern” of intimidation, obstruction and attempted smuggling.

Gaza desperately needs serious progress on reconstruction and economic revitalization today.

With a competent government—including the end of Hamas rule and the full implementation of the Board of Peace transition plan—I believe most of Gaza’s problems are fully addressable.

For women and adolescent girls, Gaza’s widespread mismanagement has had brutal, deeply personal consequences.

When families have no stable home, little income, and not enough food, dependence on others for basic survival can leave women and girls more vulnerable to coercion and abuse. The rise in forced and child marriage is a direct byproduct of that reality.

None of this excuses what is happening. Desperation may help explain why forced and child marriage is increasing, but it does not justify it. Poverty does not excuse forcing a child into marriage. Neither does hunger or displacement. No matter how desperate the circumstances, forcing a girl to marry is an unconscionable abuse committed against her—those responsible must be held accountable for the harm they inflict.

But laws and prosecutions alone cannot address the conditions that are making them so vulnerable in the first place.

Gaza needs functioning government, reconstruction, jobs, secure housing, and a system capable of protecting its people. Without that, families will continue making desperate decisions under desperate circumstances, and girls like Bissan will continue paying the price.

She was 16 years old when she lost her father and her home. Then she was forced to marry. She was a child, too young to consent to what was being done to her. When she tried to escape, she was forced to return. That is what these statistics look like in the life of one girl. And if Gaza is left in its current state, there will be more like her.

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