Exemplar Story 8: Age Verification Safeguard to Prevent Child Marriage

The initiative aims to integrate an age verification safeguard within the MOSIP digital ID system using the OpenCRVS civil registration platform to prevent child marriage, by allowing marriage officiants to verify the ages of both parties in a potential marriage. It also plans to help girls and their families access social protection programmes that encourage continued education rather than early marriage.

This initiative addresses SDG Target 5.3: Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage.

What is OpenCRVS?

OpenCRVS is an open-source digital platform for civil registration recognised as a registered DPG and designed to meet the needs of all countries—especially those operating in low-resource environments. It represents a global standard for digital civil registration, supporting inclusive service delivery, while enabling governments to maintain full local ownership and control. With no vendor lock-in or licensing costs, OpenCRVS is a sustainable, non-proprietary solution that can scale nationally and integrate seamlessly into national identity and social protection systems.

Proof-of-Concept: Age-Verification Safeguard to Prevent Child Marriage

Marriages can take place in both religious or cultural settings as well as in civil registry settings; MOSIP and OpenCRVS can be used to verify the age of the people to be married in both cases. Both of these scenarios are outlined below.

Scenario A: Child Marriage In A Religious/Cultural Setting

Most child marriages occur informally in religious or cultural settings—outside of formal legal registration systems—and are typically officiated by religious or community leaders. Under national laws, these officiants are responsible for verifying the ages of both marriage partners to ensure they meet the legal threshold before conducting the ceremony.

Given this context, the proposed age verification solution combines both social and technical interventions.

Specifically, the technical safeguards would be preceded by social interventions to:

1. Raise awareness among religious/cultural marriage officiators about the harms and prevention of child marriages.

2. Train religious/cultural marriage officiators on use of a device to conduct digital age verification.

The digital age verification safeguard assumes the existence of:

• A national ID system capable of confirming age and identity; and/or

• A comprehensive civil registry enabling age verification against birth records.

Thus it can be operated through a national ID system like MOSIP, or through a civil registry like OpenCRVS.

Using a National ID System (MOSIP)

In countries where an individual’s date of birth is collected for their national digital ID issuance, the marriage age verification process would be initiated when the parents contact a religious or cultural officiant and submit the IDs of the proposed marriage partners to the marriage officiator. The officiator would then conduct age verification on their device through MOSIP ID Authentication. If both of the parties involved are adults, the officiator would be able to send a marriage notification to the national civil registration system about the officiated marriage with relevant details. The civil registration system would then independently handle the registration of the marriage in this scenario.

This flow is mapped in the diagram below:

Fig 1. Flowchart depicting proposed solution for Scenario A through a national ID

Source: MOSIP

Using an Electronic CRVS System

Alternatively, officiators may use an electronic CRVS system like OpenCRVS to verify age. In this scenario, the officiator would enter each partner’s birth registration number or other identifiable information (such as name, place of birth, or mother’s name) into a verification interface. The interface may be accessed through a dedicated web portal, mobile app, or widely used messaging platforms such as SMS, USSD, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger.

The system would then check the OpenCRVS database using a record search API and return a result confirming whether both individuals are above the legal marriage age. If one or both are underage:

1. The officiator would be alerted and must inform the parents of the legal age of marriage (18 years and over), as well as the health, education, and welfare risks associated with child marriage.

2. The data dashboards within OpenCRVS would flag attempted underage marriages, allowing social services and awareness campaigns to be targeted to high-risk regions.

3. The eCRVS can notify eligible social protection programmes which are aimed at encouraging girls and boys to continue their education instead of marrying (e.g. the Kanyashree programme in West Bengal, India).

This flow is mapped in the diagram below:

Fig 2. Flowchart depicting proposed solution for Scenario A through an electronic CRVS system

Source: OpenCRVS and MOSIP

Scenario B: Child Marriage In A Civil Registry Context

In a minority of child marriages, parents seek to register their children’s marriages with civil registration authorities. In this scenario, the digital age verification safeguard tool would be designed for persons within national civil registration systems who are responsible for registering marriages. This process would work in a country where both a digital ID system and a digital Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system are integrated, such as Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, and the Philippines.

Under this process, the civil registration officer would complete the marriage registration form using OpenCRVS and would enter the national IDs of the proposed parties to the marriage. Through an integration with MOSIP, these IDs would be validated and authenticated. If the marriage partners are both above the legal age of marriage, their marriage would be registered.

Using an Electronic CRVS System

If either of the marriage partners are below the legal age of marriage, the officer would be alerted and the parents would then be informed of:

• the national laws requiring marriage partners to be 18 years and over, due to the significant risks to the health, education, and well-being of children marrying under the legal age, and

• the range of eligible government social protection programmes aimed at encouraging girls and boys

to continue their education instead of marrying (e.g. the Kanyashree programme in West Bengal, India). The office of the national civil registration system can facilitate a connection with these programmes.

In either scenario, the age verification safeguard tool aims to support:

• national and global efforts to increase information dissemination, counselling, and advocacy around ending child marriage developed with government, youth organisations, and civil society partners, as well as the religious/cultural leaders involved in officiating marriages, and

• greater awareness among children, adolescents, and communities of a broad range of social protection services aimed at supporting better health and education outcomes for children and adolescents under the age of 18.

The age verification safeguard tool is one part of a much broader array of policy interventions aimed at a successful, holistic approach to preventing child marriage.

This process is illustrated in the flow chart below:

Fig 3. Flowchart depicting proposed solution for Scenario B through an electronic CRVS system

Source: OpenCRVS and MOSIP