Child brides: the age estimation problem in young girls.

Area of Science:

• Forensic Anthropology
• Dental Age Estimation
• Human Identification

Background:

• Accurate age determination is crucial in legal and forensic contexts.
• Assessing legal age, particularly for minors, requires reliable methods.
• Dental maturity, specifically third molar development, is a recognized indicator of chronological age.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the Third Molar Maturity Index (I3M) for assessing if a female has reached 18 years of age.
• To determine the accuracy of I3M in discriminating between adults and minors across 15 countries.
• To assess the utility of I3M in identifying minors in suspected early marriage situations.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 3228 Orthopantomograms from healthy females across 15 countries.
• Application of the Third Molar Maturity Index (I3M) with a cut-off value of 0.08.
• Image processing using the ImageJ computer-aided drafting program.
• Bivariate Bayesian modeling to pool sensitivity and specificity data.

Main Results:

• The I3M test demonstrated high specificity, consistently above 85% across all studied countries.
• Specificity of the I3M test remained stable regardless of the country of origin.
• The method proved effective in identifying minors, with similar results observed across diverse populations.

Conclusions:

• The Third Molar Maturity Index (I3M) is a reliable tool for estimating legal age in females.
• High specificity and consistent performance across countries make I3M valuable for forensic and legal applications.
• This dental age assessment method is particularly useful for identifying minors in cases of suspected early marriage.