tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/child-marriage-3010/articlesChild marriage – The Conversation2023-08-01T14:44:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100272023-08-01T14:44:38Z2023-08-01T14:44:38ZClimate change contributes to violence against children – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539206/original/file-20230725-27-87y32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees, some of them children, in Hargeisa, Somaliland. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/climate-change-contributes-to-violence-against-children-heres-how-210027&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>Every day of the northern hemisphere’s summer in 2023 seems to bring a calamitous headline about the climate: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/jul/17/europe-heatwave-2023-us-asia-heat-extreme-severe-weather-fires-flash-floods-flooding-record-breaking-heat-wave-stress-temperature-red-alert-climate-crisis">heatwaves</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/24/greece-wildfires-corfu-evia-rhodes-heatwave-northern-hemisphere-extreme-weather-temperatures-europe">wildfires</a>, massive <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/icy-water-courses-through-italian-streets-after-dramatic-hailstorm-12925407">hailstorms</a>.</p>
<p>Such scenes are set to become our global reality in the coming years. Scientists paint a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/resources/spm-headline-statements/">grim picture</a> of how human-induced climate change, combined with wider environmental degradation, will affect us all.</p>
<p>That, of course, includes children. However, research is still in its early stages on how, precisely, both climate change and environmental degradation relate to violence against children.</p>
<p>It is crucial to explore these potential intersections to spur academic and political movement in this area. Findings from such reviews, and further research that may emerge from it, could help to inform policies and interventions that can protect and support children, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and environmental shocks. </p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>We conducted an <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zpxc8/">extensive scoping review of the literature</a> on the intersections of climate change, environmental degradation and violence against children, to see what’s known so far and what needs attention.</p>
<p>We explored both direct violence – physical, sexual and emotional – and structural violence; that is, rooted in inequitable and unjust systems and institutions. This approach allowed for a nuanced understanding of the implications for children in all countries. It also meant we could explore the causes and effects of climate change and environmental degradation in relation to systems, institutions, structures, norms and interactions.</p>
<p>The study identified five themes: hazards and disaster risk reduction; gender; climate-induced mobility or immobility; child labour; and health. What emerges clearly is that violence against children is not solely a phenomenon that intensifies during environmental shocks. It is deeply rooted in historical injustices, global systems and structures. That means it disproportionately affects those living in poverty. </p>
<h2>1. Hazards and disaster risk reduction</h2>
<p>Natural hazards, combined with large-scale humanitarian crises, pose immediate risks to health, life, property and the environment. </p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34247619/">Studies</a> have uncovered how increasing social, economic and emotional pressures in these situations expose children to higher risks of violence. This may occur in their homes or in relief shelters. It may be perpetrated by their peers, or by caregivers forcing them into labour because of the sudden need to rebuild or help make ends meet.</p>
<p>More knowledge is needed to inform integrated and culturally sensitive plans to protect children better from environmental hazards. </p>
<h2>2. Gender</h2>
<p>The effects of climate change and environmental degradation are not gender neutral. They can affect girls and boys differently. There is a <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/4/e004377">growing body of work</a> on gender-based violence and violence against women and girls in relation to climate change. </p>
<p>But this work tends to be centred on issues affecting female adults, conflating the term “gender” with “women”, without sufficient attention to the gendered effects of climate change on female and male children.</p>
<p>Existing <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2022.2095655">research</a> suggests that climate change can potentially exacerbate known drivers of child marriage in low- and lower-middle-income countries. But findings vary significantly by region. For example, there is an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48584105">observed increase</a> in child marriage motivated by the receipt of a bride price payment in sub-Saharan Africa during sudden periods of drought. In India, though, droughts have led to a decrease in child marriage to delay dowry payments. </p>
<p>Nuanced data about boys’ exposure to various forms of violence in the context of climate change is missing. That’s because studies tend to focus on males as perpetrators but not as victims of violence.</p>
<h2>3. Mobility and immobility</h2>
<p>The number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-more-climate-migrants-cross-borders-seeking-refuge-laws-will-need-to-adapt-159673">climate migrants</a> is rising. </p>
<p>Research we reviewed on migration, displacement and relocation due to climate change, natural or human-induced hazards points to increased risks of violence against children within migrating families and higher exposure to it in camps and shelters. Also, separation from families or caregivers renders children and young people extremely vulnerable to violence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-migration-and-urbanisation-patterns-in-sub-saharan-africa-149036">Climate change, migration and urbanisation: patterns in sub-Saharan Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile, immobility – when people cannot or do not want to move – has been associated in some <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/disa.12441">studies</a> with child abuse, injuries and overcrowding in slum areas. </p>
<p>Fear of violence in shelters can lead women to remain at home after natural hazards, increasing children’s risk of harm from the hazard or other forms of violence. </p>
<h2>4. Child labour</h2>
<p>Existing <a href="https://www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_651800/lang--en/index.htm">research</a> indicates that child labour increases after natural hazards due to families’ reliance on child work and the absence of strategies to eliminate child labour entirely. Child labour is also prevalent in industries associated with climate change, such as agriculture, fisheries, mining, fashion and tourism. </p>
<p>The extent of child labour in this context, and its link to violence, remains inadequately explored in research, however, due to the hidden nature and contextual specificity of this issue.</p>
<h2>5. Health</h2>
<p>Children’s physical and mental health is affected by climate change. Natural hazards have been <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30274-6/fulltext">linked</a> to poor health outcomes and increased mortality among children, particularly those younger than five.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20337500/">emerging evidence</a> that mental health issues, stemming from climate and environmental shocks, can lead to increased perpetration of violence against children, including domestic violence. Rising <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519621002783">eco-anxiety</a> among children and youth, caused by awareness of climate change and environmental degradation and fears of its consequences, adds to mental health problems. </p>
<h2>Ways forward</h2>
<p>By shedding light on the magnitude and pathways of these relationships, we want to underscore the urgent need for context-specific approaches and further research. </p>
<p>Understanding these interlinkages is essential for informing policies and interventions that can protect and support children, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and environmental shocks. By addressing the root causes of violence and prioritising the wellbeing of children in these crises, we can strive towards a safer and more sustainable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simone Datzberger received funding for this research from UCL Grand Challenges. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Parkes, Lottie Howard-Merrill, and Steven Kator Iorfa do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Exploring the potential intersections between climate change and violence against children is crucial.Simone Datzberger, Associate professor, UCLJenny Parkes, Professor in Education, Gender and International Development, UCLLottie Howard-Merrill, PhD Candidate, UCLSteven Kator Iorfa, Doctoral Researcher, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020702023-05-30T11:27:50Z2023-05-30T11:27:50ZSome refugee girls are forced into early marriage for safety – here’s why<p>Rates of child marriage increase in communities <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/resource-centre/child-marriage-in-humanitarian-contexts/#resource-downloads">displaced by conflict</a> as well as communities affected by natural and environmental disasters. </p>
<p>The current crisis in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65284948">Sudan</a> is just one place where this could be an issue. The recent earthquakes in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/major-earthquake-strikes-turkey-syria-about-200-dead-many-trapped-2023-02-06/">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64544478">Syria</a> are also typical situations where we are likely to see young girls pushed into marrying before they are ready. At these times of extreme fragility, there are fewer protections for young women than would normally be the case.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/20.500.12413/15540/805_Child_Early_and_Forced_Marriage_in_FCAS.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">report</a> published in 2020, from the Institute of Development Studies, a research organisation affiliated with the University of Sussex, shows that crises exacerbate and complicate existing causes of child marriage, such as poverty and gender inequality. There are also additional crisis-specific causes. These include food insecurity; the breakdown of legal mechanisms that protect girls, such as minimum age of marriage laws; and an absence of rights and protections, such as the right to work or a guaranteed minimum household income.</p>
<p>Marriage can be considered <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1363/42e0416?seq=2">a form of protection against sexual violence</a>, which often increases in conflict. During times of crisis, stress, insecurity and instability increase, while protective family and community structures are weakened. This reduces the support that members of extended families can provide to each other. There are also examples of forced marriages. For instance, reports from Damascus in Syria suggest that families were forced to <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/documents/959/Child-marriage-in-humanitarian-contexts_August-2020.pdf">allow the marriage</a> of girls to members of armed groups. During the civil war <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/11/10/living-fear/child-soldiers-and-tamil-tigers-sri-lanka">in Sri Lanka</a>, some parents married their girls earlier in the hope of protecting them from being recruited into militias.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/documents/959/Child-marriage-in-humanitarian-contexts_August-2020.pdf">Twelve of the 20 countries</a> with the highest prevalence of child marriage experience the most extreme humanitarian crises. Child marriage is often considered as one of the few viable survival strategies for girls in these difficult moments. Child marriage may also be considered more socially acceptable during a crisis. In many societies, women are expected to marry and have children eventually, so marriage occurring earlier than planned is not ideal but is also not necessarily <a href="https://www.tdh.ch/en/media-library/documents/research-child-marriage-syrian-refugees">considered harmful or a problem</a>. <a href="https://data.unicef.org/resources/towards-ending-child-marriage/">Global data</a> from Unicef showing the decline of child marriage hides this increase in communities affected by crises.</p>
<p>The marriage of a girl before she is 18 has life-long <a href="https://aps.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1026">negative consequences</a>, such as pregnancy-related health problems and low educational attainment. But finding effective solutions to prevent it during emergencies is difficult.</p>
<h2>What can help?</h2>
<p>Several actions are <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33446401/">recommended to prevent child marriage</a> around the globe, including in these crisis and conflict zones. Keeping girls in education is considered important, as school girls are less likely to marry. </p>
<p>Economic incentives can be provided to households when their daughters attend school rather than marry. In Bangladesh, the female secondary school assistance programme has <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Long-term-impacts-of-the-free-tuition-and-female-on-Hong-Sarr/1deea1497f45db6ed049e05a2b3f2abde313d6e8">increased the age</a> at which recipients marry by between 1.4 and 2.3 years. The payment of school fees and provision of uniforms and books is also common, and this has been effective in <a href="https://knowledgecommons.popcouncil.org/departments_sbsr-pgy/537/">Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania</a>, <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/resource-centre/the-ishraq-program-for-out-of-school-girls-from-pilot-to-scale-up/">Egypt</a> and <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/694930">Bangladesh </a>. </p>
<p>Other strategies target community expectations that limit girls’ aspirations to being a passive wife and mother only. Talking with community leaders is usually complemented by direct investment in girls. Girls are offered informal education or life skills training to enhance access to employment or enhance sexual and reproductive health knowledge, for example, often delivered by peers from their community. </p>
<p>Finally, the creation and implementation of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lasr.12033">minimum age of marriage laws</a>, and other complementing social policies, are also considered critical. While most actions are targeted at preventing child marriage, meeting the needs of married girls is also important.</p>
<p>One problem we have, however, is that most of the research done to understand child marriage and identify ways to prevent it, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X21004791">has not been done with crisis-affected communities</a>. We still do not know whether these actions work effectively for girls affected by crises. </p>
<p>Recent research on preventing violence against refugee adolescent girls argues that our responses to child marriage need to be better <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/3/5/e000825">adapted for humanitarian situations</a>. Keeping girls in schools during a humanitarian crisis is harder, for example, as is building relationships with community leaders in fast-changing community contexts. </p>
<p>Parents are also more reluctant to let their daughters access any training or events away from the family space because of worries about their security in dangerous and uncertain environments.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/child-marriages-in-indonesia-increase-womens-depression-research-shows-198777">Child marriages in Indonesia increase women's depression, research shows</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While we wait for more evidence on whether action to prevent child marriage in troubled times is working, there is more that can be done. Development professionals such as social workers, educators and health practitioners can work more closely with humanitarian organisations, <a href="https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Collaboration-Across-Humanitarian-Sectors-and-Across-the-Humanitarian-Development-Peace-Nexus-for-Preventing-Child-Marriage-and-Supporting-Married-Girls-brief.pdf">to share knowledge, resources and capacities</a>. </p>
<p>Development organisations, particularly those at local levels, have a deep understanding of the communities affected, their history, their needs and values. Meanwhile, the international humanitarian community, led by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, have expertise in providing short-term care to those affected by severe or sudden crisis. </p>
<p>Crisis usually occurs in countries where social and economic development initiatives are already present. This provides opportunities for local knowledge and leadership to guide and shape fast-paced and complex humanitarian action. </p>
<p>Closer work by these organisations and practitioners could help to prevent child marriage when communities are affected by crisis. Providing girls and their families with the resources and support to help negotiate the many challenges they face during times of crisis is the only way we can improve this situation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aisha Hutchinson has received funding in the past from The British Academy, The Economic and Social Research Council and from the Women's Refugee Commission.</span></em></p>Research shows that young girls can be pushed into marriage in refugee camps or during national disasters.Aisha Hutchinson, Lecturer in Social Sciences, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002942023-04-12T13:40:35Z2023-04-12T13:40:35ZOnly 1 in 3 girls makes it to secondary school in Senegal: here’s why and how to fix it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519615/original/file-20230405-22-w162fj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The reasons that explain why girls don’t get into secondary begin in primary school.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Godong via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Senegal has a <a href="https://www.ansd.sn/Indicateur/projections-demographiques">young population</a>, with about half of its 18 million people aged below 19. This indicates a potentially high demand for education. Of those aged six to 11, however, <a href="https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC_NEP_2018_Senegal.pdf#page=1">41%</a> are out of school. In the age group 12 to 18, <a href="https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC_NEP_2018_Senegal.pdf#page=1">43%</a> aren’t in school. <a href="https://www.education.sn/sites/default/files/2019-08/RNSE%20_2018%20%20-DPRE_DSP_BSS-%20vf%20juillet%202019.pdf#page=64">Statistics show</a>, too, that the enrolment numbers of girls decrease as they advance in grades. To understand these dynamics, the African Population and Health Research Center <a href="https://aphrc.org/publication/the-state-of-education-and-implications-of-srhr-on-the-education-of-adolescent-girls-in-senegal/">carried out a two-year study</a> on girls’ education and wellbeing in Senegal. The Conversation Africa asked Benta A. Abuya, a lead researcher on the study, to unpack the findings.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>You found that only <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/APHRC_The-State-of-Education_ENG-1.pdf#page=2">a third of girls</a> enrol in a secondary school. Why is this?</h2>
<p>The reasons begin in primary school. In Senegal, the official primary school entrance age is six. Primary school lasts six years, lower secondary lasts four years and upper secondary lasts three years.</p>
<p><a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/APHRC_The-State-of-Education_ENG-1.pdf#page=47">Our findings</a> were that in the last grade of primary school, the dropout rate was 26.7% for girls and 22.2% for boys. </p>
<p>We found that financial hardship in households is one of the obstacles to girls and boys completing school. About <a href="https://www.wfp.org/countries/senegal">39%</a> of Senegalese live below the poverty line.</p>
<p>Despite the existence of <a href="https://www.consortiumeducation.org/sites/consortiumeducation/files/2021-11/LETTRE%20DE%20POLITIQUE%20GENERALE%20POUR%20LE%20SECTEUR%20DE%20L%E2%80%99EDUCATION%20ET%20DE%20LA%20FORMATION%20LPGS-EF.pdf">government programmes</a> - like free public school education until age 16 and the Girls’ Education Support Project, which provides school uniforms - the cost of schooling is still an obstacle for many families. They have to pay for learning materials and transport to school.</p>
<p>We also found a preference to educate boys over girls. In households with limited finances, boys are more likely to be sent to school even if girls would like to go.</p>
<p>Additionally, girls who are delinquent, lack interest in school or engage in unsafe sexual activities tend to be judged harshly by communities. They are viewed as bringing shame to their families. They are, therefore, withdrawn from school and married off early in an attempt to address this behaviour.</p>
<p>Deep-seated cultural beliefs and practices – such as female genital mutilation, forced child marriages and early pregnancies – also prevent some girls from making progress in school. They, therefore, lag in education and wellbeing. </p>
<p>The legal age of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1554477X.2017.1375786">marriage in Senegal is 16 for girls and 18 for boys</a>. But families decide when girls get married. For example, in the Kolda region in the south, <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-021-01295-5">68% of girls get married before they turn 18</a>. This is more than double the national average of 31%.</p>
<p>In a scoping review we did in 2019, we found that out of 1,321 adolescent girls, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep28641.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A966c61f0bf91f2b2d091eee177c1417c&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1">78% got pregnant between ages 12 and 18</a>. Of these pregnancies, 25.6% occurred before the girls turned 15. And in an <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rapport-IGE-english.pdf#page=10">exploratory study</a> we did in 2021, teenage pregnancy was predominantly cited in Zinguinchor and Sedhiou regions in south-west Senegal, as leading to girls dropping out of school. </p>
<p>Some girls marry early because their families believe it makes them less likely to fall pregnant in a transactional sexual relationship. Others marry early if they see it as the only opportunity to make a life after dropping out of school. </p>
<h2>Why is this a problem?</h2>
<p>When girls don’t get into secondary school, they and their communities miss out on the <a href="https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/why-educating-girls-makes-economic-sense">social, economic and health benefits that accrue from education</a>. </p>
<p>When more girls get to secondary school, this spurs communities to build more secondary institutions. This in turn spurs higher primary school enrolment. It also increases the chances of girls being near the schools they need to attend, which <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rapport-IGE-english.pdf">motivates parents</a> to be more committed to supporting their schooling. </p>
<p>When girls get a secondary school education, <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED500794">the whole society benefits</a>. Critical thinking skills enable girls to participate in civic duties and drive democratic change in their communities. Educated women are better placed to address some of the health challenges facing their children and their communities, as they are often primary caregivers. </p>
<p>Educated mothers increase the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation">immunisation and nutrition intake</a> of their children, reduce the likelihood of child mortality and stunting, have lower fertility rates, and have fewer unwanted pregnancies. </p>
<p>Lastly, going to secondary school reduces the likelihood that girls will contract sexually transmitted diseases, as they are able to access information to change their health behaviour when they are most vulnerable. </p>
<h2>How can parents help turn the tide?</h2>
<p>Parents can help increase the number of girls getting into secondary school if they: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>give equal chances to girls and boys to attend school</p></li>
<li><p>refrain from marrying girls off early</p></li>
<li><p>stop using the excuse that girls are bound to “end up in the kitchen” </p></li>
<li><p>register all their children, including girls, at birth so that they have birth certificates. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>We found that a failure to follow up on the issuance of birth certificates for girls <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rapport-IGE-english.pdf">hinders their education</a> beyond primary school, as they are unable to sit for final exams.</p>
<p>The government and education stakeholders need to encourage parents to get more involved in programmes to keep girls in schools. For instance, parents are needed to drive the fight against early marriage and female genital mutilation.</p>
<p>The government should also ensure that the <a href="https://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/africa/senegal/2010/the-framework-for-the-coordination-of-girls-education-interventions">Coordinating Framework of Interventions on Girls’ Education</a> in Senegal works with communities. </p>
<p>Men and boys should be involved in intervention programmes. This has the potential <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/youth/engaging-boys-and-young-men-in-gender-equality">to shift power dynamics</a> by challenging gender norms and patriarchal beliefs that men and women aren’t equal. </p>
<p>In the regions where cultural and religious factors hinder girls’ education, parents should be at the forefront of addressing these barriers. They can do this by speaking up against early marriage and keeping girls in schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benta A. Abuya is affiliated with The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). </span></em></p>Deep-seated cultural practices – such as female genital mutilation and child marriage – prevent girls from making progress in school.Benta A. Abuya, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1909242022-09-27T13:12:02Z2022-09-27T13:12:02ZChild marriage comes with a heavy cost for young girls in Africa – but there’s one clear way out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485643/original/file-20220920-11061-sp09wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Early marriage has a number of negative effects on the lives of girls and their own children.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Riccardo Mayer/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>650 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday. That’s one of the startling figures contained in a <a href="https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Towards-Ending-Child-Marriage-report-2021.pdf">2021 UNICEF report</a> about child marriage. Africa’s sub-Saharan region is home to <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/">nine of the ten countries</a> with the highest rates of child marriage in the world. </p>
<p>Ingrained traditions and cultural practices typically entrench such early marriages. State or customary laws in <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/MarryingTooYoung.pdf#page=12">146 countries</a> allow girls younger than 18 to marry with the consent of their parents or other authorities. In <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/MarryingTooYoung.pdf#page=12">52 nations</a>, girls under 15 can marry with parental consent. </p>
<p>Early marriage among boys is <a href="https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/115-million-boys-and-men-around-world-married-children-unicef">also widespread</a>, though the numbers are far lower than they are for girls and young women. </p>
<p>And it is girls and young women who pay the heaviest costs for early marriage. Girls who marry before 18 are <a href="https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Towards-Ending-Child-Marriage-report-2021.pdf">more likely</a> to be subjected to domestic violence and less likely to continue schooling than their peers. They have worse economic and health outcomes, a burden they almost inevitably pass on to their children. </p>
<p>Early marriage has been linked to poorer <a href="https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Events/PDF/Slides/1_khatoon.pdf">cognitive development</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953617303283">stunting</a> among the children of such women. </p>
<p>Today, the practice is declining thanks to national and international policies, global treaties and, since 2016, the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage. But gains have been slow in sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>What is it that drives the practice in the region? That’s what we examined in a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021909620966778">recent study</a>. Using statistical analysis, we looked at the socio-economic and demographic determinants of early marriage among young women the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, Mali and Niger. Each of the four countries has sought to introduce measures to discourage early marriage, but their challenges remain formidable.</p>
<p>We explored several possible explanations and variables: age at first intercourse, education and literacy, women’s current age, region and type of place of residence, family wealth index, ethnicity, employment status, and even mass media exposure.</p>
<p>One factor stands out across the four countries in our study: education. Women without formal education are more likely to marry early than those who completed secondary or higher education. </p>
<h2>Four study countries</h2>
<p>The four countries have a great deal in common, including high poverty levels and substantial under-15 and rural populations. </p>
<p>In each country, around 50% of people are younger than 15, and around half of the countries’ respective populations live in rural areas (a full 84% in the case of <a href="https://malawi.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/2018%20Malawi%20Population%20and%20Housing%20Census%20Main%20Report%20%281%29.pdf#page=23">Malawi</a>).</p>
<p>Among the four countries in our study, Niger has the highest child marriage prevalence worldwide – 76% of girls are married before the age of 18. The rates stand at 52% in Mali, 42% in Malawi, and 37% in the DRC. </p>
<p>For our analysis, we turned to the most recently available demographic and health surveys from each of the four countries. We then applied a framework that seeks to describe the important social-cultural and cognitive variables and their interrelationships that underlie behaviours and decisions around reproductive health. </p>
<h2>Statistical variables</h2>
<p>The answers we found as to why early marriage is so commonplace in these countries were not always clear-cut. What’s more, there were lots of statistical variations across the four countries and contradictions, as was to be expected.</p>
<p>For example, the average age of first marriage ranged from 15.3 in Niger to 17.1 in Malawi. There was also a range in the percentage of women from the poorest wealth category in the countries who had been married by 18: Niger (90.9%), Mali (80%), DRC (70.3%), Malawi (63.1%).</p>
<p>Rates of early marriage dropped among women from richer categories, but were still high: Niger (72.7%), Mali (65.4%), DRC (60.3%) and Malawi (42.5%).</p>
<p>The study also showed that young women living in rural areas were likely to marry earlier than those from urban areas.</p>
<p>These variations’ social, economic, and cultural underpinnings are likely complex and would need some unpacking. In some cultures, for example, girls are married off young as they are considered to be more likely to be virgins still and can thus fetch a higher payment of what’s known as the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/child-marriage-brides-india-niger-syria/">bride price</a>. </p>
<p>Amid the many statistical variables that emerged, we were especially struck by the relationship between educational levels and average age at first marriage.</p>
<h2>The role of education</h2>
<p>We found that the average age at first marriage in Niger, Mali, DRC, and Malawi increased from young people with no education (15.1, 15.4, 16.2, and 16.4, respectively) to those with secondary and higher education (17.0, 16.6, 17.1 and 18.5 in that order). </p>
<p>In addition, we saw that the highest prevalence of early marriage (by 18 years) was found among young women with no education (90.6%, 80.3%, 70.9%, and 70.3%). It was lowest among women with secondary and higher education (64.2%, 62.9%, 58.9%, and 30.2%).</p>
<p>Malawi is the only one of the four countries where school education is universal, accessible and compulsory.</p>
<p>Education offers young women opportunities in life. In some African cultures, however, allowing girls to finish or even attend school <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/child-marriage-and-education/">is discouraged</a> as it is feared that an educated girl is less likely to get a husband or be a good wife.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/learning-resources/child-marriage-atlas/atlas/malawi/">In Malawi</a>, less than 15% of women have any secondary school education, and 42% of girls are married before the age of 18 – the twelfth highest rate of child marriage in the world. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>There is an urgent need for governments in these countries to introduce programmes that promote delaying the age at which girls first have sex and to equip adolescents with knowledge about responsible and safer sex. </p>
<p>Policymakers should also work to promote prolonged enrolment in school for adolescent girls. And, crucially, laws are needed – and must be enforced – that criminalise child marriages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sathiya Susuman Appunni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though child marriage rates are declining globally, the practice remains worryingly common in some African countries.Sathiya Susuman Appunni, Professor of Demography, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1699042022-08-22T12:27:10Z2022-08-22T12:27:10ZSlavery and war are tightly connected – but we had no idea just how much until we crunched the data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479488/original/file-20220816-8518-l5gine.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C3%2C996%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ugandans watch the start of the International Criminal Court trial of former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/residents-watch-the-screening-of-the-start-of-the-icc-trial-news-photo/628000204?adppopup=true">Isaac Kasamani/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm">40 million people</a> are enslaved around the world today, though estimates vary. Modern slavery takes many different forms, including child soldiers, sex trafficking and forced labor, and no country is immune. From cases of <a href="https://www.gahts.com/publications/ygsrx3nh2ecyz6z-34kln-yh99p-as9yk-e7k8n-slkln-f3htp-t9p9l-x9kb3-e75h9-mrbd6-rw7m5-t3bdh-j43r4">family controlled sex trafficking</a> in the United States <a href="https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/">to the enslavement of fishermen</a> in Southeast Asia’s seafood industry and <a href="https://www.verite.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/VeriteForcedLaborMalaysianElectronics2014.pdf">forced labor</a> in the global electronics supply chain, enslavement knows no bounds. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WuHCE3sAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars</a> of <a href="https://unu.edu/experts/angharad-smith.html">modern slavery</a>, we <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/people/kevin.bales">seek to understand</a> how and why human beings are still bought, owned and sold in the 21st century, in hopes of shaping policies to eradicate these crimes. </p>
<p>Many of the answers trace back to causes like poverty, corruption and inequality. But they also stem from something less discussed: war.</p>
<p>In 2016, the United Nations Security Council <a href="http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2331">named modern slavery</a> a serious concern in areas affected by armed conflict. But researchers still know little about the specifics of how slavery and war are intertwined. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211065649">recently published research</a> analyzing data on armed conflicts around the world to better understand this relationship.</p>
<p>What we found was staggering: The vast majority of armed conflict between 1989 and 2016 used some kind of slavery.</p>
<h2>Coding conflict</h2>
<p>We used data from an established database about war, <a href="https://ucdp.uu.se/">the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)</a>, to look at how much, and in what ways, armed conflict intersects with different forms of contemporary slavery. </p>
<p>Our project was inspired by <a href="https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/files/wappp/files/journal_of_peace_research-2014-cohen-418-28.pdf">two leading scholars</a> of sexual violence, <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/dara-kay-cohen">Dara Kay Cohen</a> and <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/polisci/people/faculty/ragnhild-nordaas.html">Ragnhild Nordås</a>. These political scientists used that database to produce <a href="http://www.sexualviolencedata.org/bibliography/papers-in-progress/">their own pioneering database</a> about how rape is used as a weapon of war.</p>
<p>The Uppsala database breaks each conflict into two sides. Side A represents a nation state, and Side B is typically one or more nonstate actors, such as rebel groups or insurgents.</p>
<p>Using that data, our research team examined instances of different forms of slavery, including sex trafficking and forced marriage, child soldiers, forced labor and general human trafficking. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211065649">This analysis</a> included information from 171 different armed conflicts. Because the use of slavery changes over time, we broke multiyear conflicts into separate “conflict-years” to study them one year at a time, for a total of 1,113 separate cases.</p>
<p>Coding each case to determine what forms of slavery were used, if any, was a challenge. We compared information from a variety of sources, including human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, scholarly accounts, journalists’ reporting and documents from governmental and intergovernmental organizations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in dark clothes sits, looking forlorn, over a crevice with rubble in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478426/original/file-20220810-16-jwchpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Yazidi woman who was held captive by the Islamic State visits the mass grave where her husband is believed to be buried in Iraq.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/YazidiSlaveTrade/994255e1eb3a4296afa1a3f3599d7192/photo?Query=yazidi&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=755&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Alarming numbers</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211065649">recently published analysis</a>, we found that contemporary slavery is a regular feature of armed conflict. Among the 1,113 cases we analyzed, 87% contained child soldiers – meaning fighters age 15 and younger – 34% included sexual exploitation and forced marriage, about 24% included forced labor and almost 17% included human trafficking.</p>
<p><iframe id="mSfzB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mSfzB/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>A global heat map of the frequency of these armed conflicts over time paints a sobering picture. Most conflicts involving enslavement take place in low-income countries, often referred to as the Global South.</p>
<p>About 12% of the conflicts involving some form of enslavement took place in India, where there are several conflicts between the government and nonstate actors. Teen militants are involved in conflicts such as <a href="https://www.orfonline.org/research/children-as-combatants-and-the-failure-of-state-and-society-the-case-of-the-kashmir-conflict-47514/">the insurgency in Kashmir</a> and the separatist movement <a href="http://www.humanrights.asia/news/alrc-news/human-rights-council/hrc6/AL-024-2007/">in Assam</a>. About 8% of cases took place in Myanmar, 5% in Ethiopia, 5% in the Philippines and about 3% in Afghanistan, Sudan, Turkey, Colombia, Pakistan, Uganda, Algeria and Iraq. </p>
<p>This evidence of enslavement predominately in the Global South may not be surprising, given how poverty and inequality <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0738894214559673">can fuel instability and conflict</a>. However, it helps us reflect upon how these countries’ historic, economic and geopolitical relationships to the Global North also fuel pressure and violence, a theme we hope slavery researchers can study in the future. </p>
<h2>Strategic enslavement</h2>
<p>Typically, when armed conflict involves slavery, it’s being used for tactical aims: building weapons, for example, or constructing roads and other infrastructure projects to fight a war. But sometimes, slavery is as part of an overarching strategy. In the Holocaust, the Nazis used “strategic slavery” in what they called “extermination through labor.” Today, as in the past, strategic slavery is normally part of a larger strategy of genocide.</p>
<p>We found that “strategic enslavement” took place in about 17% of cases. In other words, enslavement was one of the primary objectives of about 17% of the conflicts we examined, and often served the goal of genocide. One example is <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/rights-lab/resources/academic-publications/2020/establishment-and-regulation-of-slavery-by-the-islamic-state.pdf">the Islamic State’s enslavement</a> of the Yazidi minority in the 2014 massacre in Sinjar, Iraq. In addition to killing Yazidis, the Islamic State sought to enslave and impregnate women for systematic ethnic cleansing, attempting to eliminate the ethnic identity of the Yazidi through forced rape. </p>
<p>The connections between slavery and conflict are vicious but still not well understood. Our next steps include coding historic cases of slavery and conflict going back to World War II, such as <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/forced-labor">how Nazi Germany used forced labor</a> and how Imperial Japan’s military used <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/12/04/940819094/photos-there-still-is-no-comfort-for-the-comfort-women-of-the-philippines">sexual enslavement</a>. We have published a new data set, “<a href="https://www.csac.org.uk">Contemporary Slavery in Armed Conflict</a>,” and hope other researchers will also use it to help better understand and prevent future violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Our research team received the following funding that assisted with our work:
UK Arts and Humanities Research Council – Antislavery Usable Past project (AH/ M004430/1 and AH/M004430/2).
UK Economic and Social Research Council – Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement” (ES/P001491/1) (Including funds from ESRC International Impact Prize).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angharad Smith is affiliated with United Nations University Centre for Policy Research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Our research team received the following funding that assisted with our work: UK Arts and Humanities Research Council – Antislavery Usable Past project (AH/ M004430/1 and AH/M004430/2). UK Economic and Social Research Council – Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement” (ES/P001491/1) (Including funds from ESRC International Impact Prize).</span></em></p>Armed conflicts today involve slavery in many different forms, from forced marriage to child soldiers.Monti Datta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of RichmondAngharad Smith, Modern Slavery Programme Officer, Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR), United Nations UniversityKevin Bales, Prof. of Contemporary Slavery, Research Director - The Rights Lab, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713942021-11-09T02:54:07Z2021-11-09T02:54:07ZCOP26: why education for girls is crucial in the fight against climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430950/original/file-20211109-15-1mni8ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">carryingwater</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The Glasgow climate change conference is in its second week, with Tuesday November 9 dedicated to <a href="https://unfccc.int/topics/gender/events-meetings/gender-day-other-events-at-cops/gender-women-at-cop-26#eq-1">recognising gender equality</a>, and the empowerment of women and girls in climate policy and action.</p>
<p>Gender inequality means women and <a href="https://plan-international.org/emergencies/effects-of-climate-change-girls-rights#:%7E:text=Violence,when%20staying%20in%20temporary%20shelters.">girls will experience climate change</a> in unique and different ways. They are <a href="https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/this-is-how-natural-disasters-impact-men-and-women-differently-and-why-gender-equality-efforts-must-consider-climate-change/">more likely to die in extreme weather events</a> than men. And as climate change brings about forced migration, loss of housing and income, they are vulnerable to gender-based violence.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1457204924605927425"}"></div></p>
<p>Child marriage is a common coping mechanism for many families facing climate stress. For example, in 2016 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/26/climate-change-creating-generation-of-child-brides-in-africa">a 15-year-old girl in Mozambique</a> was married in exchange for 2,000 Mozambican Metical (approximately A$42) to forestall her family’s climate-induced poverty.</p>
<p>There is also strong evidence regarding the <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/publications/raising-our-voice-funding-climate-education-and-youth-leadership-in-se-asia-and-the-pacific/">impact of climate change on girls’</a> education. In particular, it will exacerbate the already existing barriers girls face. These include learning disruptions due to inadequate funds for school fees, as well as food, water and menstrual hygiene products. During natural disasters girls experience an increase in care work and disruptions due to forced displacement or migration.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-is-forcing-millions-of-girls-out-of-school-in-south-east-asia-and-the-pacific-157230">COVID is forcing millions of girls out of school in South-east Asia and the Pacific</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Malala Fund estimates the climate events of 2021 will prevent <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/0oan5gk9rgbh/OFgutQPKIFoi5lfY2iwFC/6b2fffd2c893ebdebee60f93be814299/MalalaFund_GirlsEducation_ClimateReport.pdf">at least 4 million girls</a> from completing their education. Similarly, <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/publications/raising-our-voice-funding-climate-education-and-youth-leadership-in-se-asia-and-the-pacific/">a new report from NGO Plan International</a> shows if current trends continue, by 2025 climate change will be a contributing factor in preventing at least 12.5 million girls each year from completing their education. The report states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even though girls are significantly impacted by climate change, they are also powerful agents of change, capable of strengthening a country’s response to climate change. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why education for girls is crucial</h2>
<p>In describing the COP26 summit as “a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah,” activist Greta Thunberg summed up the attitude of many <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/climate/climate-activists-glasgow-summit.html">young people protesting</a> around the world. That is, political leaders are protecting their own interests at the expense of future generations.</p>
<p>The growing <a href="https://fridaysforfuture.org/">youth activism</a> is acknowledgement this damaged planet is <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/news/climate-change/climate-change-why-kids-should-care/?utm_source=google-grant&utm_medium=sem&utm_campaign=13084032233&utm_term=&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsqOMBhDFARIsAFBTN3fWbPWHdewv1FaUltNR46_nKQmOZVrJiX9lre5dVDrjPKvtVO3tepMaAoEoEALw_wcB">theirs to inherit</a> and fix. Young people <a href="https://www.asia-pacific.undp.org/content/rbap/en/home/presscenter/articles/2019/climate-change-in-asia-and-the-pacific.html">in our region</a> will endure an increase in severe weather events, a rise in food insecurity, challenges to their health from poorer air quality and pollution, and the impact of species’ extinction and biodiversity change. </p>
<p>In the face of these challenges, education for all young people is crucial. But in particular, education, empowerment and leadership of girls and young women is the key to climate resilience. </p>
<p>Project Drawdown, a <a href="https://drawdown.org/solutions/health-and-education">global research project</a> which identifies and assesses solutions to climate change, notes that education</p>
<blockquote>
<p>shores up resilience and equips girls and women to face the impacts of climate change. They can be more effective stewards of food, soil, trees, and water, even as nature’s cycles change. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430962/original/file-20211109-15-fk70kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young people in our region will endure an increase in severe weather events, and girls are particularly vulnerable. (Children in a school in Papua New Guinea)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/willwill-nuku-papua-new-guinea-july-551275105">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Education for girls can be a pathway for fighting the climate crisis in three key ways:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>education in both the sciences and social sciences is necessary to address climate change. Girls’ participation in these fields will drive innovation in green technologies as well as a social approach to resilience built on equality</p></li>
<li><p>formal education can build on women and girls’ existing community-based knowledge regarding disaster risk reduction and help them respond to climate emergencies</p></li>
<li><p>education creates pathways to more independent decision-making for women and girls around work, family planning and community engagement. It also creates opportunities for leadership and participation in formal decision-making.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Girls and young women are already leading the way in climate responses in the region. For example, 17-year-old Anjali Sharma led a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/anjali-sharma-breaking-new-ground-in-climate-fight-20210304-p577ym.html">landmark class action</a> – with seven other teenagers – in the Australian Federal Court against Australia’s environment minister Sussan Ley. The group was seeking an injunction to prevent Ley approving a coal mine expansion, arguing it would contribute to climate change which endangers their future.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/these-aussie-teens-have-launched-a-landmark-climate-case-against-the-government-win-or-lose-itll-make-a-difference-145830">These Aussie teens have launched a landmark climate case against the government. Win or lose, it'll make a difference</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/0oan5gk9rgbh/OFgutQPKIFoi5lfY2iwFC/6b2fffd2c893ebdebee60f93be814299/MalalaFund_GirlsEducation_ClimateReport.pdf">The Malala Fund</a> also iterates the importance of investing in girls’ education in the fight against climate change. It argues such investment increases social resilience and strengthens adaption and mitigation efforts. </p>
<h2>Australia can do more</h2>
<p>The Plan International report shows that in 2019, Australia spent A$516 million of its official development assistance on projects which targeted action against climate change. </p>
<p>That represents just 25% of Australia’s development assistance, putting Australia in 12th place among the OECD’s 30 development committee donors.</p>
<p>Plan International’s report also shows climate education is absent in Australia’s recent development policies and education strategies. For instance, <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/aid/partnerships-recovery-australias-covid-19-development-response">Australia’s Partnerships for Recovery: Australia’s COVID-19 Development Response’ policy</a> — launched in May 2020 — fails to mention climate change among the three pillars of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ever-wondered-what-our-curriculum-teaches-kids-about-climate-change-the-answer-is-not-much-123272">Ever wondered what our curriculum teaches kids about climate change? The answer is 'not much'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/if-we-want-to-achieve-global-climate-targets-young-people-must-take-centre-stage-171240">Young people are demanding change</a> from those in power, organising in their communities to educate one another, engaging in activities to protect the environment and adapt to its changes, and demanding to be heard.</p>
<p>Australia must be more ambitious in ensuring youth and young women are prepared for the challenges ahead. By prioritising girls’ education in its funding and partnerships for regional development, Australia can promote gender equitable climate leadership.</p>
<p>Political leaders have a responsibility not only to engage and respond to young people, but also to build their capacity to face climate change, now and in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Betty Barkha is currently the co-chair of the International Women's Development Agency (IWDA) and serves as an advisor to FRIDA Young Feminist Fund and the Global Resilience Fund.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Lee-Koo has engaged in research partnerships with the World YWCA, Plan International Australia and the International Women's Development Agency on issues designed to advocate for the inclusion of young women and girls in global issues.</span></em></p>Girls and women will experience climate change in unique ways. This includes being vulnerable to gender-based violence as climate change brings about forced migration, loss of housing and income.Betty Barkha, PhD Candidate, Monash UniversityKatrina Lee-Koo, Associate Professor of International Relations, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1572302021-03-17T02:31:01Z2021-03-17T02:31:01ZCOVID is forcing millions of girls out of school in South-east Asia and the Pacific<p>In response to reports of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-17/coronavirus-australia-live-news-covid-19-latest/100013798">surging COVID cases in Papua New Guinea</a>, the Australian government will provide greater emergency support to deliver vaccines, increased testing capacity and clinical advice to our near neighbours.</p>
<p>This is part of a broader program <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/media-release/australias-partnership-covax-delivers-vaccines-our-neighbours">to deliver vaccines and medical support</a> to Australia’s partners throughout Asia and the Pacific with Fiji, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines so far receiving doses. </p>
<p>While these are welcome efforts, more needs to be done to understand and respond to the long-term implications of this pandemic on countries in our region — particularly for girls, <a href="http://contemporarysecuritypolicy.org/adolescent-girls-in-protracted-crises-promoting-inclusion-and-advancing-peace/">who have often been overlooked</a> in crisis recovery planning. </p>
<p>At the heart of understanding this are the barriers and opportunities to girls’ access to education.</p>
<p>Prior to the pandemic, there had been significant improvements in girls’ enrolments in school in South-east Asia and the Pacific. But the pandemic threatens those gains, with more girls leaving the classroom due to caring responsibilities, financial constraints, family violence and child marriage. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.plan.org.au/publications/smart-successful-strong/">new report by Plan International</a> shows between January and June 2020, 24,000 applications for underage marriage had been lodged with Indonesia’s district and regional courts. According to the report, this is more than two and a half times the total number for the whole of 2012.</p>
<p>Like rates of education, this represents a reversal in a previously positive trend, in this case of decreasing cases of child marriages.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-raising-the-minimum-age-for-marriage-is-not-enough-for-indonesia-to-put-an-end-to-child-brides-123765">Why raising the minimum age for marriage is not enough for Indonesia to put an end to child brides</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Girls dropping out of school</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.unicef.org/eap/media/7146/file/Issue_Brief%3A_Issue_Brief%3A_COVID-19_and_Girls%E2%80%99_Education_in_East_Asia_and_Pacific.pdf">UNICEF reported</a> the last two decades saw a halving of the number of girls out of school from 30 million to 15 million. But <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373992">UNESCO now estimates</a> 1.2 million additional girls in the region could drop out of school due to the effects of COVID-19. </p>
<p>While the data varies from country to country, the overall picture suggests the pandemic will exacerbate existing gender inequalities and have long-term implications for girls and their communities.</p>
<p>Across the region girls drop out of school because their <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/GiHA%20WG%20analysis%20%20brief.pdf">care responsibilities at home have dramatically increased</a> as family members fall victim to the virus or return home because the pandemic has stalled migratory work.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic, women and girls in the Pacific in particular faced some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world. <a href="https://pacificwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ThematicBrief_COVID19gender_Pacific_March2021.pdf">This has dramatically increased in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://pacificwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ThematicBrief_COVID19gender_Pacific_March2021.pdf">in Fiji calls to the national domestic violence helpline</a> during the lockdown period — between February and April 2020 — increased by over seven times. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/knowledge-products/20201119_SDD_Policy_Paper_Covid-19.pdf">UNESCAP similarly documented</a> heightened calls to helplines in Singapore, Malaysia, India and Samoa, and increased pressures on violence shelters and women’s organisations in Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, Tonga and China. Violence at home is a major barrier to girls’ participation in education.</p>
<p>Prior to the pandemic, <a href="https://www.5050foundation.edu.au/assets/reports/documents/Our-Education-Our-Future-Policy-Reportcompressed.pdf">the cost of school fees</a> was also identified as a barrier to girls’ education in the region. The economic hardship brought on by the pandemic — combined with pre-existing attitudes that devalue girls’ education — will likely see girls taken out of school permanently. </p>
<p>Crisis also brings about increases in child, early and forced marriage. <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.au/media/media-releases/covid-19-causing-greatest-surge-of-child-marriages">Save the Children has estimated</a> the pandemic will cause an additional 2.5 million child marriages worldwide, with an estimated 200,000 more girls experiencing child marriage in South Asia in 2020. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-parts-of-the-world-bride-price-encourages-parents-to-educate-daughters-64100">In parts of the world, bride price encourages parents to educate daughters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This increase is in response to poverty and economic hardship, crowding in homes, and as a result of sexual violence. Girls who are married and experience early pregnancy <a href="https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/child-marriage-and-education-impacts-costs-and-benefits">almost never return to school</a>.</p>
<h2>Why does this matter for pandemic recovery?</h2>
<p>The benefits of ensuring girls’ access to education is not just for women and girls’ rights; it will be seen throughout the community. </p>
<p><a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/775261531234655903/pdf/128171-replacement-HighCostOfNotEducatingGirls-Web.pdf">Where girls have access to education</a>, they are more likely to earn more, marry and have children later, make better informed decisions about their health and well-being, and are more able to exercise independent decision making. </p>
<p>Across the region it has been demonstrated that where there is greater gender equality and women and girls are able to access their rights, <a href="https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/FWV_blueprint_1-Evidence.pdf">societies are stronger, more peaceful</a> and <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/775261531234655903/pdf/128171-replacement-HighCostOfNotEducatingGirls-Web.pdf">prosperous</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-schools-become-battlegrounds-during-conflict-93851">Why schools become battlegrounds during conflict</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Building resilient communities is essential, as COVID sits among climate change, political instability, regional forced migration and other crises that will continue to challenge the region. <a href="https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/focus-areas/women-poverty-economics/gender-and-climate-change">Women and girls will be at the forefront</a> of <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/food-security-and-covid-19-recognising-women-s-leadership">addressing all of these crises</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/partnerships-for-recovery-australias-covid-19-development-response.pdf">Australia’s long-term strategy</a> for supporting COVID recovery in the region focuses on the three pillars of health security, stability and economic recovery. While there is a commitment to “protecting the most vulnerable, especially women and girls”, this pledge has been made against the backdrop of <a href="http://devpolicy.org/aidtracker/trends/">nearly a decade of decreasing aid</a>. </p>
<p>Australia’s contributions to the <a href="http://devpolicy.org/aidtracker/commitments/global-partnership-for-education/">Global Partnership for Education</a> — an effort to strengthen education systems in developing countries — has fallen dramatically since 2014 when it pledged US$151 million. <a href="https://www.globalpartnership.org/content/donor-contributions-gpe">In 2020 Australia pledged</a> close to US$35 million, while Canada, France, Germany and the United States pledged between US$88-90 million each. </p>
<p>This needs to be reversed if we are to address the complex insecurities facing girls and their communities in the aftermath of COVID. Access to education for all children needs to be prioritised, with particular recognition of the unique barriers for girls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Lee-Koo has received research funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government, the World YWCA, and Plan International.</span></em></p>Around 33,000 child marriages took place in 2020 in Indonesia, a new report shows. This comes with more girls in Australia’s region dropping out of school and taking on more caring responsibilities.Katrina Lee-Koo, Associate professor of International Relations, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1436252020-07-29T14:13:38Z2020-07-29T14:13:38ZPasha 74: From girl to adult: the impact of early marriages in Ghana<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350165/original/file-20200729-27-9q31tp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>There are a number of reasons why many girls marry young in Ghana. They include gender inequality, poverty, traditional and customary practices, social norms, peer pressure and poor parenting. The impact of early marriage on girls’ lives can be negative, especially if they drop out of school and are not ready for adult responsibilities. But some adolescent girls report being happy in their marriages, saying their quality of life is better than it was in their parents’ home. Education is a key factor in giving girls more choice about when they marry.</p>
<p>In this episode of Pasha, Elizabeth Anokyewaa Sarfo Fordjour, a psychologist at Stellenbosch University, presents the reasons for and impact of early marriages in Ghana. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-psychological-effects-of-early-marriage-what-i-learnt-from-some-ghanaian-girls-135069">The psychological effects of early marriage: what I learnt from some Ghanaian girls</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong>
“Woman walks away in a park located in Accra Ghana.” By Gerhard Pettersson <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-walks-away-against-new-discoveries-1424667761">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p><strong>Music</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“Space ambient music fragment” by Clacksberg found on <a href="https://freesound.org/people/Clacksberg/sounds/491288/">Freesound</a> licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">Creative commons license</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Psychological services for girls who have been abused and traumatised in their marriages would help alleviate and reduce distress.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1350692020-06-03T14:55:30Z2020-06-03T14:55:30ZThe psychological effects of early marriage: what I learnt from some Ghanaian girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339130/original/file-20200602-133860-1w91vbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sub-Sahara African countries are on a campaign to reduce cases of early marriage</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/advocacy_project/42059928384">Bernard Chihota/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ghana is one of the many countries worldwide in which child marriage – marriage <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/">below the</a> age of 18 – happens. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.unicef.org/ghana/media/576/file/Ghana%20Multiple%20Cluster%20Indicator%20Survey.pdf">survey conducted in 2018</a> indicates that just over 19% of girls are married before they turn 18 while 5% are married before their 15th birthday. These numbers were lower than <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR307/FR307.pdf">four years previously.</a>. </p>
<p>Ghana has one of the <a href="https://data.unicef.org/resources/statistical-snapshot-child-marriage-west-central-africa/#">lowest rates</a> of child marriage in West and Central Africa. Within the country, the Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR307/FR307.pdf">reported</a> the highest rates (28% each) while the Greater Accra region has the lowest rate (8%). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/RHSS/article/view/7112">There are a myriad</a> of interconnected reasons for why the practice of child marriage happens. These include gender inequality, poverty, traditional and customary practices, social norms, peer pressure and poor parenting. Ignorance, impunity and poor enforcement of the law also play a role. </p>
<p>Research in Ghana has focused on some of the causes as well as the effects of early marriage. But the lived experiences of married individuals, their parents and other stakeholders and individuals have been largely ignored. </p>
<p>I conducted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13575279.2019.1701411">research</a> to understand reasons why adolescent girls marry early, their experiences and its impact on their psychological well-being. I also sought to understand the social constructions of marriage and adolescence from the perspective of the female spouses’ parents and community elders. </p>
<p>My findings show that the practice of child marriage in some Ghanaian communities was influenced by social, cultural, economic and individual factors. The practice has both positive and negative psychological effects on adolescent girls. </p>
<p>These findings provide an understanding of the intricate nature, practice and implications of child marriage in Ghana. </p>
<h2>What’s known</h2>
<p>The impact of early marriage manifests in many ways.</p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30622050">reported</a> effects of early marriage is that girls leave school. This means that girls lose the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills. Leaving school also takes them away from friends and spaces where they develop social skills and networks as well as support systems.</p>
<p>Another is the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4967971/">loss of adolescence</a> since most married individuals immediately take on adult roles and responsibilities. This can be very stressful. </p>
<p>There are also severe reproductive and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672998/">health risks</a>, abuse of victims’ human rights and a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333245661_Accelerating_adolescent_girls'_education_and_empowerment_a_call_for_action_to_the_G7">high risk</a> of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323408001_Child_marriage_and_associated_outcomes_in_northern_Ghana_A_cross-sectional_study">experts</a> also report an association between child marriage and poor health, teenage pregnancy, high child mortality and low agency. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672998/">Studies</a> indicate that most married girls are usually not cognitively, physically and psychologically prepared to take on the role of being a wife and a mother. </p>
<p>There have been attempts to put a stop to child marriage. The <a href="http://www.unesco.org/education/edurights/media/docs/f7a7a002205e07fbf119bc00c8bd3208a438b37f.pdf">Children’s Act of Ghana</a> specifically prohibits the betrothal or marriage of a child. It gives the child the right to refuse either. And, six years ago, Ghana’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection set up a unit to end child marriages.</p>
<p>Several governmental and nongovernmental organisations are also working to end the practice in Ghana. </p>
<p>These interventions have had some positive effect as the number of child marriages has come down. But a lot remains to be done.</p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>I want to also highlight that not all experiences were bad - my main findings were that early marriage had both positive and negative implications. This depended on a range of factors. These included, the age of the young woman, her expectations for marriage, relations with the husband as well as the in-laws, expectations on domestic chores and abuse. </p>
<p>Having a good experience of marriage led to reports of a “satisfied” life. This was particularly true for participants who found relief from previous mistreatment in the parental home. Some married girls revealed that they found their marital homes as less psychologically distressing which brought a feeling of safety and relief.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hmm…the reason I said it is better is that when you were in your house and you were going through pain and hearing some disheartening things…, but if you come to stay in your matrimonial home, such unkind words and painful treatment, you won’t hear them anymore. That is why I am saying it has been better.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This experience of positive psychological well-being is novel in the literature on the psychological impact of child marriage.</p>
<p>This may also explain why young girls agree to marriage in Ghana. Young women who have good experiences are likely to influence their peers and choose marriage over their family backgrounds.</p>
<p>But my research also uncovered negative effects.</p>
<p>Remorse was a strong feeling. Most participants reported regretting marrying early or were disappointed in their marriages. Girls who had considered marriage as an only means to come out of difficult family situations and poverty reported regretting the decision when these expectations were not realised. </p>
<p>Others seemed to regret the decision to marry as it prevented them from completing their education or learning a trade.</p>
<p>Most girls reported worrying about the future and livelihood of themselves and their children. </p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>Possible interventions include working towards reorienting a community’s perceptions of the role and worth of women. This could help prevent gender-based practices such as child marriage and abuse of women. </p>
<p>Another important intervention would be to enhance girls’ access to education and keep them in school. Research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2012.00327.x">shows that</a> education is strongly associated with the delay of early marriage. </p>
<p>In addition, girls who have dropped out of school due to pregnancy or parents’ financial difficulties should be encouraged to re-enrol in school. </p>
<p>Policymakers should also educate communities on the legal and accepted age for marriage, management of teenage pregnancy as well as sexual and reproductive health and their implications for the practice of child marriage. And parents should be encouraged to wait for their daughters to mature into adults before allowing them to marry. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://jhu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/interventions-to-prevent-child-marriage-among-young-people-in-low">possible route</a> would be to provide parents with economic incentives and other avenues of income generation instead of the child. </p>
<p>Finally, very little is being done to assist girls who are already married. Interventions could include equipping them with the knowledge, skills and support that could help them manage the impact of their marriage. And psychological services for girls who have been abused and traumatised in their marriages would help alleviate and reduce distress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Anokyewaa Sarfo Fordjour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The mental health implications of child marriage on young girls are significantElizabeth Anokyewaa Sarfo Fordjour, Psychologist, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1326062020-03-08T07:46:25Z2020-03-08T07:46:25ZSustainable development goals need a final push with just 10 years to go<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318569/original/file-20200304-66084-1fpsp8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Access to clean water remains a huge problem in Zimbabwe and many other African countries. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since their adoption by 193 countries <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/summit">in 2015</a>, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have been hailed as the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2020/01/20/strategies-for-delivering-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-some-lessons-from-rwanda/">“most ambitious”</a> and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/09/1047372">“transformative”</a> agenda for fixing the world’s biggest challenges to date. </p>
<p>In some respects the hype is justified. The goals cover a much wider range of objectives than the <a href="https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf">Millennium Development Goals</a>, their predecessors, even though these goals were thought to have <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/seven-million-lives-saved-under-5-mortality-since-the-launch-of-the-millennium-development-goals/">saved the lives of seven million people</a>. Unlike the millennium development goals, which were applicable only to developing countries, both developed and developing countries have committed themselves to achieving the sustainable development goals. </p>
<p>The 17 goals seek to end all forms of poverty everywhere by 2030, by achieving 169 targets. They have been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpqVmvMCmp0&feature=emb_title">endorsed by celebrities</a>, <a href="http://sdgyl.org/">activists</a> and citizens from around the world. Competitions to be chosen as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=YmpMeAhI4kE">advocates</a>, <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/sdgs/sdgpioneers">pioneers</a> and <a href="http://sdgyl.org/">young leaders</a> for the development goals are proliferating.</p>
<p>Yet, progress in achieving them does not match the hype. According to the most recent <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/#/">SDG Index</a>, an unofficial but influential barometer on the goals, most countries are <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/#/">struggling to make headway</a>. For example, <a href="https://github.com/sdsna/2019GlobalIndex/blob/master/country_profiles/Denmark_SDR_2019.pdf">Denmark</a>, the top performer for 2019, has only succeeded in <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg3">eradicating poverty</a>, <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg10">reducing inequalities</a> and <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16">achieving peace and justice as well as building strong institutions</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/sdsna/2019GlobalIndex/blob/master/country_profiles/Algeria_SDR_2019.pdf">Algeria</a>, the highest-ranked country in Africa, is experiencing either “significant challenges” or “major challenges” with 11 of the goals, with an upward trajectory only for eliminating poverty, and <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg9">promoting industry, innovation and infrastructure</a>.</p>
<p>Decision-makers tend to ascribe weak performance to the widely published US$2.5 trillion <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/dsgsm1340.doc.htm">“financing gap”</a> between current expenditure and what is required to attain the development goals. But there might be other reasons, too. With only 10 years to go until 2030, the year when they should be achieved, it’s an opportune moment to look at the weaknesses, and identify ways they can be addressed.</p>
<h2>Four critical questions</h2>
<p>In my work at the <a href="http://sasdghub.up.ac.za/">South African SDG Hub</a> on the goals in Africa and beyond, I have encountered four critical questions. Compelling responses to these questions can help accelerate progress. </p>
<p><strong>Are the goals redundant?</strong> The goals cover a large number of priorities governments would have focused on as a matter of course. Their overlap with preexisting government objectives ranges from decreasing the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg3">number of HIV infections</a> and <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg2">reducing stunting</a>, through improving <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg7">access to electricity</a> and <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg9">building resilient infrastructure</a> to <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16">combating corruption</a> and increasing tax collection. </p>
<p>But these overlaps need not be a problem. Governments would have done most of the things the goals propose. Their value, then, lies in getting governments to raise their level of ambition further. This is indeed a big ask. One way of making these stretched targets more than mere wish lists is using the goals to set up more networks that share good practices. Due to severe time constraints, the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf/2020">formal reporting process</a> might not be the ideal vehicle for such networks.</p>
<p><strong>Are they unattainable?</strong> The goals’ targets are exceptionally ambitious. The level of ambition is clear when considering a snapshot of the 169 targets. </p>
<p>One social target seeks to <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/zero-hunger#2.2">end all forms of malnutrition by 2025</a>, another wants to ensure that all women have <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/good-health#3.7">access to contraception by 2030</a>. One target wants to ensure <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/water-and-sanitation#6.1">access to safe and affordable water for all people</a>, while another wants the same for <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/energy#7.1">electricity access</a>. </p>
<p>Other targets are to <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/gender-equality#5.3">eliminate child marriages by 2030</a> and to <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/sustainable-consumption-production#12.3">halve food waste by 2030</a>. There are also targets to <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/oceans#14.5">conserve at least 10% of all coastal and marine areas</a> by 2020, and to ensure that all people have legal identities by 2030, <a href="https://sdg-tracker.org/peace-justice#16.9">with all births registered</a>.</p>
<p>Does this mean the goals are fundamentally unattainable? Not if they are used to foster game-changing innovation. They have the potential of taking governments beyond a mere compliance mindset, to one that promotes innovation and experimentation. Beefing up the annual <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/TFM/STIForum2020">STI Forum</a> is one way of doing so. Developing and scaling game-changing innovation are the only ways to address the cross-border, multi-generational and multi-sectoral challenges expressed by the development goals.</p>
<p><strong>Do we know how much the goals will cost?</strong> Many people find the widely publicised estimates of their financing gaps unconvincing. The often-cited financing gap of up to <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/dsgsm1340.doc.htm">US$2.5 trillion per year</a> was initially calculated by the UN Commission on Trade and Development (<a href="https://unctad.org/en/Pages/Home.aspx">UNCTAD</a>) in 2014, a year before the development goals were <a href="https://issuu.com/unpublications/docs/world_inv_rpt_2014">adopted</a>. How can the goals be attained if there’s uncertainty about their costing?</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2019/2019_africa_index_and_dashboards.pdf">recent report</a>, 82% of African countries surveyed indicated that that they had not yet calculated the cost of the goals. This is despite the fact that 100% of the countries surveyed highlighted a lack of funding as the main impediment to achieving the sustainable development goals.</p>
<p>What can be done? Thorough calculations of country-level financing needs – ideally by using a standardised and comparable methodology – will go a long way in responding to this criticism. The goals should not be used as a catchall funding wish list.</p>
<p><strong>When will the measurement tools be sorted out?</strong> The 169 targets are measured by more than 240 indicators. Surprisingly, the methodologies of some indicators – the so-called <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/tierIII-indicators/">tier 3 indicators</a> – have not yet been finalised. This means that, five years after their adoption, progress on some of the goals’s targets can still not be measured. </p>
<p>The lack of quality data compounds the issue, specifically in Africa. Take South Africa, for instance. Its <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/">statistical institution</a> is regarded as one of the best in the developing world. But in its <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/MDG/SDGs_Country_Report_2019_South_Africa.pdf">most recent report on the goals</a> it was only able to report on 128, or 64%, of the 199 of tier <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/Tier%20Classification%20of%20SDG%20Indicators_13%20February%202019_web.pdf">1 and tier 2 </a> indicators. These are indicators <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/tier-classification/">with internationally established methodologies</a>.</p>
<p>In responding to this criticism, the first order of business should be to sort out the metrics. More specifically, the outstanding indicators’ methodologies should be finalised as a matter of urgency. Five years after their adoption, the legitimacy of the goals depends on having a standardised set of methodologies for all indicators to measure progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Willem Fourie receives funding from the Department of Science and Innovation. He is the co-ordinator of the South African SDG Hub.</span></em></p>The 17 goals seek to end all forms of poverty everywhere by 2030, by achieving 169 targets. Progress in achieving them does not match the hype.Willem Fourie, Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria and Co-ordinator of the South African SDG Hub, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1314912020-02-24T13:19:34Z2020-02-24T13:19:34ZSocial norms stop Ethiopian girls from making safe choices about pregnancy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315298/original/file-20200213-11005-1ldto3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most young, married girls in Ethiopia don't have the family planning information they need. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite progress in reducing the rate of adolescent pregnancy, more than <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/publications/adolescent-pregnancy">16 million</a> adolescent girls globally become parents each year. According to the World Health Organisation, 90% of these young mothers live in the global South. </p>
<p>Girls in countries with the highest adolescent fertility rates, many of which are in <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/publications/adolescent-pregnancy">sub-Saharan Africa</a>, are also the most likely to be malnourished without access to quality maternity care or safe abortions. This leads to complications and consequences that can last a lifetime. </p>
<p>Maternity is a <a href="https://apps.who.int/adolescent/second-decade/files/1612_MNCAH_HWA_Executive_Summary.pdf">leading cause</a> of disability for girls aged 15-19, according to the World Health Organisation. </p>
<p>The maternal mortality rate for girls under 16 years is around four times that of women in their early <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15695970">20s</a>. In low and middle-income countries, the overwhelming majority of adolescent pregnancies occur in marriage. </p>
<p>In developing countries, an <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530891498511398503/pdf/116829-WP-P151842-PUBLIC-EICM-Global-Conference-Edition-June-27.pdf">estimated 75%</a> of babies born each day to girls under the age of 18 are born to those who are already married. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">report</a> on Ethiopia released last year corroborates this. In Ethiopia <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/SR241/SR241.pdf">60%</a> of girls are married by the age of 18. This is a significant factor in the high rate of pregnancy among 15 to 19 year olds.</p>
<p>However, many adolescent girls don’t get the care they need. Free contraceptives are available in most communities in Ethiopia, but many girls lack social access because of conservative <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">cultural and religious norms</a>. A dominant norm is that girls need to give birth as quickly as possible after marriage to <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">prove their fertility</a>.</p>
<p>Adolescent girls and community health workers also <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">report</a> that service providers — contrary to their official mandate — are also unwilling to provide advice on contraceptives because of these powerful norms.</p>
<p>What this means is that young, married girls too often don’t get the family planning information they need. They also don’t get support in negotiating with their husbands and families to take control of their own fertility. </p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">research in Ethiopia</a> found that access to contraceptive information and supplies varies by region, but that cultural and gender norms are still a barrier to use of contraception even where it is made available. </p>
<p>As one 14-year-old married girl <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">explained</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am not using (family planning) now – before I have one child. If you stay without a child for a longer time, they will tell you, you are barren. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our evidence highlights that these realities need to inform efforts to reduce adolescent pregnancies and improve maternal and child health.</p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org">research</a>, a longitudinal research initiative in low and middle-income countries, focuses on the consequences of early motherhood and reviewed some of the strategies already in place in some regions of Ethiopia. </p>
<p>We found promising practices in Amhara, a rural area in northern Ethiopia which has historically had the lowest average age of marriage. These included the <a href="https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-019-0470-1">expansion</a> of a health extension programme, in which the government funds training for female secondary school graduates and employs them to deliver health care in rural regions. </p>
<p>Another good example is the <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/5/e025937">Women’s Development Army</a>, a government-supported initiative involving women volunteers. It spreads messages about family planning and maternal care at the grassroots level. </p>
<p>Another effective model was developed in Amhara <a href="https://www.care.org/work/health/sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights/what-we-do/adolescent-health/tesfa">to improve</a> relationships between young women, their husbands and in-laws, to increase their uptake of contraceptives. <a href="https://www.care-international.org/">Care International</a>, a non-profit organisation working to end poverty by empowering women and girls, did this by engaging with community gatekeepers such as religious leaders, health workers and village elders to critically reflect on gender norms and find ways to support girls’ groups.</p>
<p>These strategies have helped improve outcomes for girls in Amhara. Our report found that adolescents there were more likely to identify a form of family planning than in other study localities.</p>
<p>There’s an urgent need to scale these efforts to tackle both adolescent pregnancy and early marriage. </p>
<p>But there are still obstacles to severing the link between marriage and early motherhood. In Oromia in central Ethiopia, girls <a href="https://www.gage.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Adolescent-health-nutrition-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-in-Ethiopia-1.pdf">reported</a> fears about contraceptive use. Some cited concerns that it could make them ill, cause their hair to fall out and make them permanently infertile. </p>
<p>These fears, combined with a lack of access to reliable sexual and reproductive health information, low education rates and the pervasive social norms linking adolescent marriage and early childbirth, are all driving high adolescent fertility rates. </p>
<p>Another major barrier to breaking the link between marriage and early motherhood is in situations where large families are considered economically important. This is the case in pastoralist communities such as in Afar, a north east region of the country. </p>
<p>All these dynamics underline the need to continue to address the wider set of social norms that underpin early adolescent fertility while promoting access to education and female role models who have made different life choices. This must happen alongside the expansion of adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Pincock works for the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence programme. She has previously received funding from UKRI.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Jones, is a principal research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute and the director of the Gender and Adolescent: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme, which receives funding from the UK Department for International Development’s Research and Evaluation Division.</span></em></p>Over 60% of girls in Ethiopia are married by the age of 18. Many don’t have support in negotiating with their husbands and families to take control of their own fertility.Kate Pincock, Research Associate, Refugees Studies Centre, University of OxfordNicola Jones, Research Fellow, Overseas Development InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1265402019-11-12T14:47:14Z2019-11-12T14:47:14ZTanzanian girls need support, not threats, to avoid pregnancy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301258/original/file-20191112-178502-1xy7zw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Arresting pregnant teenagers won't curb pregnancy rates.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teenage girls in Tanzania are routinely excluded from school if they become pregnant and are prevented from returning to complete their education. Yet a <a href="https://dailynews.co.tz/news/2019-09-195d832dc66c95d.aspx">recent case</a> in the Rukwa Region involving over 200 pregnant girls dropping out of school in six months, shows even this is not the worst outcome girls may face. </p>
<p>The threat of criminal prosecution continues to be wielded by government officials trying to find a solution to the escalating rates of teenage pregnancy in the country, <a href="https://tanzania.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/factsheet_teenage%20pregnancy_UNFPA_14oct.pdf">up by 4%</a> between 2010 and 2015. In the case from the Ruwka Region in West Tanzania, a local councillor told reporters that if men impregnating underage girls were going to be arrested and prosecuted, the same approach should be applied to the girls who had become pregnant. </p>
<p>This story is not new. In January 2018, five schoolgirls <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/press-room/the-center-for-reproductive-rights-denounces-arrest-of-pregnant-schoolgirls-in-tanzania">were arrested</a> in Mtawara Region. The girls were eventually released and charges were dropped, but this incident brought international attention to Tanzania’s high rates of pregnancy. </p>
<p>Pregnancy at a young age presents various social and economic <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5485691/">challenges</a>. These include stigma, discrimination and risk of poverty. Punitive laws which <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/02/14/i-had-dream-finish-school/barriers-secondary-education-tanzania">prevent</a> pregnant girls and young mothers from remaining in school reinforce these by closing off opportunities to improve economic outcomes as well as reinforcing shame and social exclusion. </p>
<p>A 2017 Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/14/tanzania-15-million-adolescents-not-school">report</a> estimated this policy has contributed to 1.5 million adolescents being denied access to education in Tanzania in 2017. In November 2018, the World Bank pulled $300 million in aid funding from the Tanzanian government. The organisation’s spokesperson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/15/world-bank-pulls-300m-tanzania-loan-over-pregnant-schoolgirl-ban">cited</a> unease with the country’s barriers to girls’ education that the policy represented. </p>
<p>The link between acquiring a secondary education, and outcomes such as expanded choices, opportunities and economic independence is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2015.1047737">well documented</a>. Girls in Tanzania <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.853871">see</a> education as key to their own personal aspirations around work as well as being intrinsically valuable. Yet World Bank data shows that girls’ completion rates at lower secondary level <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.SEC.CMPT.LO.FE.ZS?locations=TZ">have dropped 6%</a> since 2012. </p>
<p>Tackling this decline requires addressing barriers girls face to enrolment and retention, such as economic conditions and social inequalities. Yet reports like the one from Rukwa Region suggest that a hardline, punitive stance on teenage pregnancy in Tanzania isn’t going away any time soon. </p>
<p>Indeed, President John Magufuli, who was elected in 2015, has continued to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/30/tanzania-president-ban-pregnant-girls-from-school-john-magufuli">reiterate</a> support for the 1963 law which allows schools to ban girls once they become pregnant. </p>
<h2>The root of the problem</h2>
<p>It’s unlikely that the threat of arrest will reduce teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy rates in Kenya, for example, are <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/fr308/fr308.pdf">significantly lower</a> at 18% compared to 27% in Tanzania, according to the latest Demographic and Health Survey. They have also not risen in the way that rates in Tanzania have. The Kenyan government <a href="https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2016STEPUP_AdolMothersKenya.pdf">actively encourages</a> girls who have given birth to return to school. Kenya also has significantly better educational inclusion than Tanzania, despite Kenyan girls facing similar socio-economic constraints and pressures.</p>
<p>In contrast, the most recent <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR321/FR321.pdf">large-scale data</a> on teenage pregnancy from the Demographic and Health Survey in 2015/16 showed that more than one in four teenage girls in Tanzania had become mothers, increasing by 4% since 2010. </p>
<p>The justification for exclusion of pregnant teenage girls is that they are a “bad influence” on other students. This notion is echoed in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tanzania-schoolgirls-arrests/tanzania-slammed-for-misguided-arrest-of-pregnant-schoolgirls-idUSKBN1EZ2C2">calls</a> for the arrest of pregnant girls by government officials; their pregnancy is treated as evidence of a moral failing, and they are at risk of contaminating others. </p>
<p>Yet a major factor driving rates of teenage pregnancy is a lack of social and economic capital, which makes girls vulnerable and forces them to seek out relationships which offer them the support they need to survive. Risk of pregnancy is increased by a lack of knowledge about contraceptive methods, and its inaccessibility – teenage girls in Tanzania have the <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Family-Planning-in-East-Africa-Report_January-2018.pdf">lowest</a> contraceptive use rates in East Africa.</p>
<h2>What research tells us</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13691058.2019.1674921?journalCode=tchs20">research</a> shows that social networks like friendships and links to the community can be sources of support and solidarity for girls. These generate social capital which enables them to resist pressures around sex and relationships. Friendships with like-minded students and support systems in the wider community, including church groups, helped girls to feel confident about pursuing goals that mattered to them and to reject sexual relationships they did not want.</p>
<p>Excluding girls from school cuts them off from these forms of social capital. What’s more, the threat of arrest reinforces the stigma and shame around early pregnancy by framing it as a criminal act. </p>
<p>It’s likely to be girls who are already disadvantaged that will further suffer from this type of action. Given the unmet demand for contraception in Tanzania, the average age of first pregnancy is <a href="https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Family-Planning-in-East-Africa-Report_January-2018.pdf">19.5 years old</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, girls from the poorest socioeconomic backgrounds are <a href="https://www.unicef.org/tanzania/what-we-do/education">twice as likely</a> to be married before the age of 18 compared with those in wealthier families. And in rural areas, <a href="https://tanzania.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/factsheet_teenage%20pregnancy_UNFPA_14oct.pdf">32% of girls</a> become teenage mothers compared to 18% in urban centres.</p>
<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>Instead of expelling and arresting schoolgirls, the government must pay attention to the drivers of teenage pregnancy, which are entirely overlooked in current punitive policies. Youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services can help girls to avoid pregnancy, but gender inequality and poverty intersect in ways which increase the likelihood of girls getting pregnant while still in school. </p>
<p>Girls suffer from particularly high drop-out rates due to the demands of childcare, cooking and domestic chores that eat into their time to study. At secondary level, students must also pay fees for various items, even in state schools. Families that don’t recognise the value of educating their daughters are reluctant to fund their schooling. This means girls must make money themselves. Poverty is a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2867784/">significant driver</a> of transactional sex in exchange for gifts and money amongst young women, which puts girls at risk of pregnancy because of the lack of negotiating power over condom use that characterises these encounters. </p>
<p>Rates of teenage pregnancy and childbirth in Tanzania are only likely to increase if action isn’t taken to help girls overcome challenges like these, rather than marginalise them further. </p>
<p>Tanzania <a href="https://una.or.tz/how-are-the-sustainable-development-goals-implemented-in-tanzania/">ratified</a> the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and made a commitment to “leave no one behind” by addressing structural drivers of inequality in an integrated way. But if current trends continue, Tanzania will fail to meet these targets and fail a generation of the most vulnerable girls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126540/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Pincock works on the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence research programme at the Overseas Development Institute. She has received ESRC funding for her research in East Africa and currently is funded by UKRI for research in Uganda.</span></em></p>Tanzania’s government must focus on the drivers of teenage pregnancy, which are entirely overlooked in current punitive policies, instead of expelling and arresting schoolgirls.Kate Pincock, Research Associate, Refugees Studies Centre, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254002019-10-23T13:28:24Z2019-10-23T13:28:24ZChild marriage in North Africa: still a lot to be done<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297645/original/file-20191018-56194-1dpsrrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Morocco reformed its family law in 2004 to increase the legal age of marriage to 18.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year about <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/">12 million of the world’s children</a> will be married before they turn 18. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">UNICEF</a> figures suggest about 18% of them will be boys and about 82% girls. </p>
<p>Child marriage is widespread across developing countries, cultures and religions. It violates the rights of children and has widespread and long term consequences. It is driven by gender inequality, poverty, patriarchal traditions and the precarious socio-economic position of women, especially in rural areas. </p>
<p>The practice continues in the Middle East and Africa, even though many countries have laws banning it. In West Africa, Niger has the highest prevalence: 76% of all marriages there involve children. It is followed by the Central African Republic with 68%, Mali with 52% and Guinea with 51%. In North Africa, the figure for Mauritania is 37%; Egypt 17% and Morocco 13%. </p>
<p>Child marriages are slowly declining. Progress is most dramatic when it comes to the marriage of girls under 15 years of age. In North Africa, the percentage of women married before age 18 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">has dropped</a> by about half, from 34% to 13%, over the past three decades. Nevertheless <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-015-0060-5">child marriages</a> are still prevalent in the region.</p>
<p>In my book, “<a href="http://www.mapfes.ma/fr/parution-dun-nouvel-ouvrage-collectif-sur-le-mariage-des-filles-mineures-au-maghreb/">Le marriage des filles mineures au Maghreb”</a>, I explore the impact of child marriages. In particular, I show how the marriage of underage girls has a devastating effect on their lives. I also show how it <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">hinders countries from achieving the UN sustainable development goals</a>. This is particularly true when it comes to education, health, gender equality, and the fight against poverty.</p>
<p>Yet the problem is rarely integrated into the national development debate and is seldom tackled by governments. The book shows that Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have ratified international human rights treaties and adopted universal conventions, but aren’t putting them all into practice. </p>
<p>There have been some encouraging signs. The three North African countries have made headway in <a href="http://riverapublications.com/assets/files/pdf_files/moroccos-experience-with-gender-gap-reduction-in-education.pdf">educating girls</a> and improving their living conditions during the past four decades. This has contributed to the decrease in child marriage.</p>
<p>They are good <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/july-2008/women-north-africa-secure-more-rights">examples</a> of effective intervention to end child marriage. </p>
<p>But Morocco, in particular, still has much further to go. More than 30,000 underage girls entered into arranged marriages in <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/03/241745/study-shows-30000-female-minors-enter-wedlock-year-morocco/">2018</a>. The country reformed its family law in 2004, but still allows young girls to marry before the legal age of 18 with the permission of a judge, and under circumstances such as a pregnancy. The conditions remain vague.</p>
<p>It’s also a country where violence against women is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-morocco-women-violence/many-women-in-morocco-face-abuse-at-home-some-are-now-speaking-out-idUSKCN1TB1Y3">not</a> receding. </p>
<h2>Forced despite consequences</h2>
<p>Several economic, social, and cultural factors drive underage marriage. Poverty and old traditions often force young girls into it. Families calculate that there will be one less person to feed when a girl goes to her husband’s home. </p>
<p>A reason often cited is family honour. Families overlook the fact that child marriage often leads to domestic violence, divorce and sometimes <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c770/42e6c7bcf5060ca36c1313627c8519446a9f.pdf">even suicide</a>.</p>
<p>My book argues that, regrettably, legal measures to protect women and girls by criminalising child marriage face substantial hurdles. These include a conservative culture, the accommodation of religious fanatics, and gender-based discrimination.</p>
<p>The consequences of child marriage can be devastating. </p>
<p>Little girls see their childhood curtailed and their adolescence confiscated. They run <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372345/">medical risks</a>. Many girls don’t survive the first pregnancy and <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/health/">die during childbirth</a>. They may suffer mental health problems, as well.</p>
<p>Girls are also forced to <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/themes/education/">drop out</a> of school. </p>
<h2>Steps towards ending child marriage</h2>
<p>Women’s and human rights organisations <a href="https://www.unicef.org/morocco/media/181/file/Mariage%20des%20enfants%20au%20Maroc.pdf">emphasise</a> the need to end child marriage through legislation. They also call for severe sanctions against violations of the law and violence against women. </p>
<p>In my book I also stress the need to establish and implement laws and policies that criminalise child marriage. These marriages should <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/the-problem-the-child-marriage-act-1342720">become illegal</a>, with no exceptions. Facilitating or participating in them should be made a criminal offence. </p>
<p>But the legal route is not enough. Other steps need to be considered. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Raising awareness among parents and young people. Research <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/media_68114.html">shows</a> that some parents are not aware of the consequences of child marriage and that they are prepared to change when they become aware. Many marry their daughters simply because early marriage is the only option they know.</p></li>
<li><p>A national strategy for the integration of women in economic, social, cultural and political development. One way of doing this would be to introduce income-generating projects for poor families, especially in rural and distant areas. This would supplement the work being done by the state and civil society organisations <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/07/250611/morocco-highest-inequality-index-north-africa/">to eradicate</a> – or at least reduce – illiteracy, poverty and inequality.</p></li>
<li><p>Concerted efforts to ensure women are educated. </p></li>
<li><p>Increased access to health care.</p></li>
<li><p>Support and funding for women’s organisations to protect girls’ rights.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>To meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating child marriage by 2030, governments and civil society leaders in North Africa should continue their efforts to reform family laws.</p>
<p><em>Moha Ennaji ‘s most recent books are Minorities, Women and the State in North Africa and Moroccan Feminisms.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moha Ennaji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The region has made progress but efforts must continue to end a harmful practice rooted in poverty and tradition.Moha Ennaji, Professor of Linguistics, Gender, and Cultural Studies, Université Sidi Mohammed Ben AbdellahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1237652019-09-20T04:30:59Z2019-09-20T04:30:59ZWhy raising the minimum age for marriage is not enough for Indonesia to put an end to child brides<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293211/original/file-20190919-22420-pyv2qm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C992%2C661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many children in Indonesia do not know that having sexual relations may lead to them being pregnant and forced to marry their partners</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.jawapos.com/nasional/24/07/2019/1-dari-9-anak-nikah-di-bawah-umur/">In Indonesia, one out of nine girls marry before their 18th birthday</a>. It’s a statistic that puts Indonesia in the <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/indonesia/">top ten countries with the highest number of child brides</a>.</p>
<p>Last week, the Indonesian parliament <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/17/asia/indonesia-marriage-age-raise-intl-scli/index.html">agreed to raise the minimum age for women to marry from 16 to 19 years old</a> in an attempt to curb child marriage. </p>
<p>Even though that decision is an important step towards ending child marriage, lessons from India prove it is not enough. </p>
<p>In India, child marriage persists even though the legal age for women to marry has been <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/why-is-age-of-marriage-different-for-men-and-women-the-law-the-debate-5925004/">18 since 1978</a>. </p>
<p>India has the <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/india/">highest absolute number of child marriages in the world</a> due to <a href="https://ilg2.org/2015/07/02/child-marriage-in-india-loopholes-in-the-law/">various factors</a>, including the lack of access to education and rigid gender norms. </p>
<p>To protect girls from child marriages, various studies have suggested at least three actions:</p>
<ul>
<li>providing access to formal education</li>
<li>educating youth on reproductive health and rights</li>
<li>promoting gender equality at grass-roots level. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Providing formal education</h2>
<p>Raising the minimum legal age for women to marry to 19 years provides more opportunities for girls to finish high school before they tie the knot. </p>
<p>Research has shown the <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/publication/2016/01/04/aa6bb91f9368be69e00d036d/kemajuan-yang-tertunda--analisis-data-perkawinan-usia-anak-di-indonesia.html">importance of higher education</a> to prevent child marriage. As education increases child marriage decreases. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, the <a href="https://mikrodata.bps.go.id/mikrodata/index.php/catalog/633">2012 National Social and Economic Survey</a> shows senior high school graduates are less likely to get married than junior high school alumni.</p>
<p>Keeping girls in schools longer prevents them from becoming child brides. It will also bring economic benefits not only for themselves but for the country. </p>
<p>An unpublished report from <a href="https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/">UNICEF Indonesia</a> shows highly educated women will have better chances to secure jobs. In the end, this will contribute to the country’s economy. </p>
<p>To keep young girls at school and prevent them from marrying early, the government should make sure girls receive their <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/06/26/ri-kicks-12-year-compulsory-education-program.html">12 years of compulsory education</a>.</p>
<h2>Sex education</h2>
<p>Research by the Credos Institute in 2017 in Rembang, Central Java, shows the lack of information for children on <a href="https://jakartaglobe.id/multimedia/no-means-no-putting-stop-child-marriage-teen-pregnancy/">sexual reproductive health and rights</a> is one of the reasons child marriage continues to happen. </p>
<p>Many children in Indonesia do not know that having <a href="https://jakartaglobe.id/multimedia/no-means-no-putting-stop-child-marriage-teen-pregnancy/">sexual relations may lead to them being pregnant and forced to marry their partners</a>. </p>
<p>Research in 2016 by a local NGO representing youth, <em><a href="https://www.ari.or.id/">Aliansi Remaja Independen</a></em>, shows seven out of eight girls in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and East Java admit they had unplanned pregnancies prior to their marriage.</p>
<p>The fertility rate for Indonesian women aged between 15 and 19 was <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.ADO.TFRT?locations=ID">47 births per 1,000 women</a> in 2017. That’s much higher than India’s <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.ADO.TFRT?locations=ID">23 births</a> per 1,000 women. </p>
<p>Little do the girls know that early pregnancy would increase their chance of dying – <a href="https://www.prb.org/adolescent-fertility/">twice as high</a> as for those who become pregnant in their 20s. </p>
<p>Sexual education in <a href="https://iwhc.org/2018/10/empowering-girls-begins-proper-sexuality-education/">Kenya, Peru and Pakistan</a> has helped reduce child marriage and unplanned pregnancies. Classes on sexual education in those countries are comprehensive. Children can learn about issues of human rights, gender inequality and power relations in relationships. </p>
<p>The Indonesian government should provide comprehensive sexual education by including it in the school curriculum. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-teach-sex-education-in-indonesia-academics-weigh-in-122400">How to teach sex education in Indonesia: academics weigh in</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Promoting gender equality</h2>
<p>Girls are more prone to child marriage due to society’s perceptions and expectations of girls in domestic roles. </p>
<p>According to the Credos Institute’s 2017 research, girls are considered ready to marry when they are able to take care of the family. For boys, it is really up to them. Mostly, boys think they are ready when they feel they are economically independent. </p>
<p>This expectation may be stronger in rural areas, which is possibly one of the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324089397_An_empirical_exploration_of_female_child_marriage_determinants_in_Indonesia">reasons the rate of child marriage is higher there than in urban areas</a>. The <a href="https://mikrodata.bps.go.id/mikrodata/index.php/catalog/633">2012 national survey</a> found the rate of child marriage in villages was 29.2%, compared to 19% in cities.</p>
<p>The government should work more closely with civil society organisations to promote gender equality.</p>
<h2>Addressing taboo</h2>
<p>Another reason child marriage is still common in Indonesia is that the public’s fear of adultery has become stronger in line with rising conservatism. </p>
<p>Conservative groups have created movements to support early marriage as they think it provides protection from the sin of adultery. One such movement is <a href="https://tirto.id/bisnis-dan-kontroversi-gerakan-indonesia-tanpa-pacaran-cK25"><em>Indonesia Tanpa Pacaran</em></a> (Indonesia without dating), which encourages youths not to date and to marry as soon as possible. </p>
<p>This public pressure is evident in <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/UNICEF-Marriage-Dispensation-Research-Brief.pdf">a 2019 study</a> of why parents ask for dispensation for their daughters to marry in Tuban, East Java; Mamuju, West Sulawesi; and Bogor, West Java.</p>
<p>The study shows parents seek permission to marry their daughters before the legal age because they <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/UNICEF-Marriage-Dispensation-Research-Brief.pdf">worry their children will commit adultery, especially when their children are in relationships</a>.</p>
<p>We can overcome this problem by working at the grass-roots level with the relevant community. </p>
<p>In West Lombok, for example, where the rate of child marriage is relatively high at <a href="https://www.bps.go.id/publication/2016/01/04/aa6bb91f9368be69e00d036d/kemajuan-yang-tertunda--analisis-data-perkawinan-usia-anak-di-indonesia.html">25%</a>, <a href="http://www.civilsocietyasia.org/resources/their-time-is-now-time-to-act-report">young people</a> are working together with village-level institutions. They advocate for funding to protect young girls from being married early by providing information on reproductive health and rights.</p>
<p>Child marriage is a multifaceted issue that requires concerted efforts from various sectors.</p>
<p>A national strategy that covers all of these issues would better help reduce the numbers of child marriages in Indonesia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadira Irdiana tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Raising the minimum age for Indonesian women to marry to 19 years is important, but on its own is not enough to reduce rates of child marriage.Nadira Irdiana, Research and Advocacy Associate PUSKAPA (Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing), PUSKAPALicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1193532019-07-02T14:33:00Z2019-07-02T14:33:00ZZambian teens can’t talk about sex or contraception, even with their friends<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282017/original/file-20190701-105187-1094yis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teenage girls who fall pregnant in Zambia are often mocked and feel isolated.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DFID/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Becoming pregnant constitutes a threat to young girls’ health. That’s because they have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(13)70179-7">a higher risk</a> of maternal complications than adult women. </p>
<p>In fact, these complications were the <a href="https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/data/causes-death-adolescents/en/">leading causes of death</a> among 15 - 19 year old girls in 2016. And national data from 2012-2013 reveals that almost one third of women aged between 20 and 24 in Zambia had given birth before they turned 18. This trend continues. Child marriage has historically been an important factor but even if that practice has declined over the past few decades, high rates of adolescent pregnancy persist.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302740">A range of factors</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.07.018">is associated</a> with these high rates. Using contraception is not seen as important, and young people struggle to access it. Condoms have a bad reputation for reducing men’s pleasure; some believe they have holes that allow the HIV virus to slip through. So they are not often used. There is a low level of knowledge about the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Married girls are expected to become pregnant within a year after marriage. And, finally, young women rely on – and are to a large extent expected to engage in – transactional sex to cover basic material needs.</p>
<p>We set out <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2019.1621379">to study</a> and better understand how social norms concerning adolescents’ sexual behaviour make girls vulnerable to unintended pregnancy in a specific context. The study formed part of the <a href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02709967">Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of Girls</a> (RISE), a randomised controlled trial that aims to measure the effect of economic support, community discussions and youth clubs on early childbearing rates in a rural Zambian context that has high rates of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2019.1621379">We found</a> that adolescents were operating in an environment where they couldn’t admit to others that they were sexually active. There wasn’t much space for open, judgement-free communication with friends and parents about sexual matters. So the teens didn’t know about contraception or how to avoid pregnancies – the only message they received was “abstinence”.</p>
<p>To solve this problem, interventions will be needed at multiple levels: with adolescents, families, communities, and in society generally. Young people need access to comprehensive sexuality education and life skills training. Parents, teacher, health workers and community leaders need to be involved in encouraging open discussions about sexuality and contraception.</p>
<h2>Pressure and shame</h2>
<p>The research involved individual interviews and focus group discussions with girls and boys aged between 13 and 18 and the parents of other young people of this same age. The researchers interviewed girls aged between 13 and 20 at four rural sites in Zambia’s southern province. Fieldwork was conducted in two stages in 2017.</p>
<p>Girls reported that both their peers and parents would react negatively if it became known they had a boyfriend. Girls mostly advised each other not to date boys and not to have sexual relationships. But, quite a few claimed that girls can feel under pressure to have a boyfriend. That pressure is generally not directly about dating boys or men and having sex. It was about accessing certain commodities that boyfriends can pay for: basic things, such as snacks to bring to school, lotions or washing powder for clothes, or, more rarely, expensive items like mobile phones or fashionable clothes.</p>
<p>Participants recognised that girls who look for economic support may come from poor families that cannot afford to cover basic needs – “they have hunger at home”, as one participant put it. </p>
<p>When asked whether a pregnant girl or a girl with a baby brings shame to her family, some agreed – although others did not. Those who felt an early pregnancy was shameful for the family explained that it indicated the girl’s parents had not supported or guided her. However, this concept of shame did not seem to relate primarily to morality.</p>
<p>In general, pregnant young women were not judged for not respecting religion or for having committed a sin, but for the burden they put on their families and the consequences in terms of discontinued education and future possibilities. </p>
<p>Both girls and boys stated that getting pregnant or making a girl pregnant could “destroy their future”. Girls who had given birth told us they had lost friends because of their pregnancy. They said that their friends no longer came to see them, avoided their company, and some laughed at them.</p>
<h2>Boys’ experiences</h2>
<p>Norms for sexual behaviour are strongly gendered. The social sanctions against pregnant girls are stronger than against the men and boys who make them pregnant. </p>
<p>Unlike girls, boys may boast about their relationships with girls among friends. Nevertheless, boys risk being held economically responsible and taken out of school. In many reported cases, the boy or man either denied responsibility or disappeared when he learned about a girlfriend’s pregnancy. This is presumably because they are afraid of being held accountable.</p>
<p>No participants mentioned boys pressuring girls for sex or the use of violence as contributing factors. But at least two of the eight girls with a baby had become pregnant because of rape.</p>
<h2>Contraception frowned on</h2>
<p>Interestingly, not one participant told us that early pregnancies occurred because young people do not use contraception or because they don’t know enough about the risks of having unprotected sex.</p>
<p>Social norms in Zambia consistently indicate that unmarried girls should not use contraception. Young people themselves said that they cannot ask for contraception because that would mean revealing they were having sex. </p>
<p>Parents were strongly opposed to the idea that their girls could avoid unwanted pregnancies by using contraception. Even just talking about contraception and condoms could encourage girls to “experiment” or to become “prostitutes” – which meant having many partners or going after men for money. It was also commonly believed that hormonal contraception could be harmful to young women and might result in infertility, disabled babies or even cancer.</p>
<p>All these findings suggest that it will take interventions at every level to address the issues of sex, contraception, pregnancy and associated risks in Zambia. Just talking to adolescents won’t suffice; parents, teachers, communities and society at large also need to be involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joar Svanemyr receives funding from University of Bergen and The Research Council of Norway. </span></em></p>There isn’t much space in Zambia’s rural areas for open, judgement-free communication with friends and parents about sexual matters.Joar Svanemyr, Post doc researcher, Chr. Michelsen InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1173372019-05-21T10:01:20Z2019-05-21T10:01:20ZA global survey sheds new light on how bad events affect young people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275613/original/file-20190521-23820-c080bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Burnt shacks after a fire in a Mumbai slums. Adolescents are deeply affected by traumatic events in their lives.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The percentage of the world’s population that’s aged between 10 and 24 is growing exponentially. It currently <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/publications/state-world-population-2013">makes up a quarter</a> of the world’s population: that’s 1.8 billion people. So it’s increasingly important to understand how people in this age group are affected by events. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54431bbee4b0ba652295db6e/t/5ce2b9b53fdc1e0001552ec8/1558362550220/ACEs+Paper.pdf">major new study</a> based on surveys done in multiple countries – ranging from Vietnam, China, Bolivia, Egypt, India and Kenya to the UK and the US – across five continents provides groundbreaking insights into the impact that adverse events have on children. The study catalogued the adverse childhood experiences suffered by 1,284 adolescents aged 10 to 14 in “low-income urban settings” around the world. These adverse events include physical and emotional neglect, violence, and sexual abuse. </p>
<p>This is the first global study to investigate how a cluster of adverse childhood experiences work together to cause specific health issues in early adolescence – and have terrible, life-long consequences. </p>
<p>The research found remarkably common experiences with trauma, and very similar impacts, regardless of where the children lived. It found that there was a strong association with both adolescent depression and violence perpetrated by young people. </p>
<p>Other findings included that young girls often suffer significantly. But, contrary to common belief, boys reported even greater exposure to violence and neglect. This makes them more likely to be violent in return.</p>
<p>The study was a major collaboration between the World Health Organisation and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. It aimed to understand more about the development of gender stereotypes in early adolescence and their impact on adolescent health around the world. </p>
<p>The findings buttress a <a href="https://www.geastudy.org/new-blog/bellagioreport">soon to be released report</a> reflecting the assessment of 22 experts from 15 countries. They argue that the world will never achieve gender equality by focusing on girls and women alone and excluding boys and men. This has major implications for both international and national policies.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>Overall, the study found that 46% of young adolescents reported experiencing violence, 38% suffered emotional neglect and 29% experienced physical neglect. </p>
<p>Consistent with the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/207725">literature</a>, we observed that girls tend to exhibit greater internalising behaviours. These include depression and contemplation. Boys tend to show greater externalising behaviours, such as poor behaviour regulation and aggression.</p>
<p>Boys stood out in several categories. They were more likely to report physical neglect, sexual abuse and violence victimisation. </p>
<p>For both boys and girls, the more adversity they experienced, the more likely they were to engage in violent behaviour. This included bullying, threatening or hitting someone. </p>
<p>But the effect of the adversity was more pronounced for boys than girls: boys were 11 times more likely to be engaged in violence, while girls were four times more likely to be violent. The study also found that, in general, the cumulative effect of their traumas tended to produce higher levels of depressive symptoms among girls than boys. Boys, meanwhile, tended to show more external aggression than girls.</p>
<p>In many countries, adolescent boys are <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136321">more likely to smoke and drink</a>. They are also more prone to both unintentional and intentional injury and death in the second decade of life than their female counterparts. </p>
<p>Conversely, one quarter of adolescent girls worldwide are married by age 18 years. And two million births annually are to girls aged younger than 15 years, while girls’ secondary school education still lags behind boys (56%-63%). Also, social and vocational opportunities are frequently more constrained for girls.</p>
<h2>The whole story</h2>
<p>But these statistics tell only part of the story. </p>
<p>While the data are cast in terms of gender disadvantage, that disadvantage is not equally distributed across the socioeconomic spectrum. In low- and high-income countries alike, those at the bottom of the ladder are more likely to leave school earlier, have children earlier, and marry earlier. </p>
<p>Poverty and gender inequality together conspire to disadvantage large segments of the adolescent population. To achieve gender equality, we need to redefine the problem as a “gender”, not women’s and girls’, issue. And, as we point out in the report, the evidence is strong that the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>links between gender equality and life satisfaction among adults suggest that men as well as women benefit from high levels of societal gender equality. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Our study offers a unique multinational examination of adverse childhood experiences in early adolescence. Its findings show high rates of exposure experienced by young adolescents in resource poor neighbourhoods in low and middle-income countries. Similarly, it shows strong associations between adverse childhood experiences and both depressive symptoms and violence perpetration. </p>
<p>Interventions are often focused on behaviours (such as violence) or clinical symptoms (such as depression). But this new research suggests there’s a need to understand childhood exposure to adversity. We conclude that adverse childhood experiences should be included routinely in behavioural research of adolescents. </p>
<p>The study also suggests that research, practice, and policy efforts to address adverse childhood experiences in early adolescence may be critical to reducing adolescent morbidities and to achieving the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals and the <a href="https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/topics/adolescence/framework-accelerated-action/en/">World Health Organisation’s Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert W. Blum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The data suggest that boys experience as much disadvantage as girls.Robert W. Blum, Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1162062019-05-02T14:32:41Z2019-05-02T14:32:41ZBreast ironing: a harmful practice that doesn’t get sufficient attention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272193/original/file-20190502-103045-lqz7eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mothers iron their daughters' breasts as a way of preventing early marriage and keeping their daughters in school for longer. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent news reports in the UK of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/mar/04/breast-ironing-victims-urge-stronger-action-to-root-out-dangerous-custom">breast ironing</a> portray yet more ways in which culture causes harm to young girls. The reports followed renewed calls for stronger action against the <a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/assets/Understanding-breast-flattening.pdf">practice</a>, which is observed to prevent the development of a girl’s breasts and subsequently reduce the sexual attention she may receive. It involves using an object to massage, pound, or press the breasts flat. </p>
<p>Breast ironing is <a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/assets/Understanding-breast-flattening.pdf">common</a> in West and Central Africa, including Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Togo, Benin, Guinea-Conakry, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe. It’s particularly prevalent in <a href="https://www.athensjournals.gr/health/2016-3-4-5-Vitalis-Pemunta.pdf">Cameroon</a>: there, the number of girls who have been subjected to breast ironing is estimated be as high as one in three (around 1.3 million). </p>
<p>According to the United Nations, <a href="https://www.athensjournals.gr/health/2016-3-4-5-Vitalis-Pemunta.pdf">3.8 million teenagers</a> worldwide have been affected by breast flattening. It’s estimated that about <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/71429/what-is-breast-ironing-and-how-common-is-it-in-britain">1 000 girls</a> from West African communities across the UK have been subjected to the practice, but the figure could be much higher. </p>
<p>While reports on the horrors of female genital mutilation, forced marriage and so-called honour killings are common, people are perhaps less aware of the practice where young girls, as puberty sets in, have their breasts ironed flat. </p>
<p>I have established this during 15 years of research into “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/isbn/9781472428882">harmful cultural</a> practices” around the world. The practice mirrors ugly misogynistic beliefs and values that underpin other abusive practices. It is ultimately reflective of a power dynamic that demands female submissiveness and complete control over the sexuality of women and girls. </p>
<h2>The socialisation of young girls</h2>
<p>Breast ironing has been an embedded part of the socialisation of young girls from affected communities for quite some time. The medical consequences can be severe. The practice can include the use of grinding stones, spatulas, brooms and belts to tie or bind the breasts flat. Sometimes leaves which are believed to have medicinal or healing qualities are used, as well as plantain peels, hot stones and electric irons. </p>
<p>The practice is usually carried out by mothers, shamans and healers. Some midwives perform the practice. This makes it a source of income, in a way that’s similar to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1464993416674299">female genital mutilation</a>. </p>
<p>The growth of a girl’s breasts during puberty is seen as linked to the emergence of her sexuality; if left unchecked, this will bring “problematic” and “destructive” implications for family and community <a href="https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/women-violence-and-tradition-taking-fgm-and-other-practices-to-a-secular-state(cfa5fe44-a87c-4593-980e-69cbe830c159).html">status quo</a> (patriarchy). </p>
<p>However, this gendered reading of the practice is further complicated by <a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/assets/Understanding-breast-flattening.pdf">research</a> that suggests mothers begin ironing the breasts of their daughters as a way of trying to prevent early marriage and keep daughters in school for longer. </p>
<p>In other words, if a girl’s breasts can be held back from developing they will not be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47695169">viewed</a> as ready for marriage and childbirth and so will be free to continue with their education for longer. </p>
<p>Understanding the <a href="http://news.trust.org//item/20131205132047-15osx/">drivers</a> behind the practice is obviously critical if routes to change are going to be identified. Clearly breast ironing is not the answer to child marriage. But in contexts where there are few choices, it seems to offer some mothers the only viable way of giving their daughters a little longer to become educated enough to have options.</p>
<h2>A global problem</h2>
<p>Female genital mutilation and breast ironing needs to be situated within a broader ideology that sees female sexuality as shameful and something to be hidden and denied. </p>
<p>Globally, there are efforts to reverse this mindset. UK Aid, for example, funds a social movement called <a href="https://www.thegirlgeneration.org/">The Girls Generation</a> which works throughout Africa to reverse the social norms underpinning female genital mutilation. </p>
<p>The replacement of harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and breast ironing with other new rituals that celebrate the female body will hopefully, in time, help reverse these negative views. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-target-resources-in-efforts-to-end-female-genital-mutilation-109805">How to target resources in efforts to end female genital mutilation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Unravelling the prevalence of this practice and the reasons behind it will not be helped by <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/71429/what-is-breast-ironing-and-how-common-is-it-in-britain">news reporting</a> – as happened in the UK – that depicts breast ironing as evidence of yet more horrors harboured by “other cultures”. </p>
<p>The focus needs to be on the underlying structural inequalities that continue to devalue the bodies of women and girls. This is a global problem and not something unique to specific parts of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamsin Bradley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Close to 4 million teenage girls are subjected to breast ironing worldwide. This harmful cultural practice, which is most prevalent in West and Central Africa, needs to stop.Tamsin Bradley, Professor of International Development Studies, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090932018-12-21T05:36:31Z2018-12-21T05:36:31ZWill Indonesia act to end legal child marriage?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251485/original/file-20181219-45397-n0c9ez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5590%2C3724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Girls who marry early have limited education, health and income-earning opportunities. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hoped a ruling last week by the country’s Constitutional Court (MK) will lead to an end to child marriage in Indonesia where <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-17/child-marriages-in-indonesia/9771076">one in four girls marry before the age of 18</a>.</p>
<p>Under the country’s marriage law, the legal age to marry is 16 for women and 19 for men. <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/12/13/breaking-court-orders-revision-of-minimum-age-for-women-to-marry.html">The court ruled</a> that the minimum age of 16 for women to marry is unconstitutional. </p>
<p>The Indonesian Parliament must now follow up on the Constitutional Court’s decision by amending the marriage law. In particular, the minimum marriageable age for women needs to be increased to 19 years to ensure children, especially girls, are safe from any abuse. </p>
<h2>Problems of child marriage</h2>
<p>Indonesia is the fourth-most-populous country after China, India and the US. A third of Indonesia’s 260 million population are children below the age of 18. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/id/UNICEF_Annual_Report_(Ind)_130731.pdf">Nearly half of them are poor</a>. </p>
<p>Children living in poverty are at greater risk of being married at an early age. And if they do marry early, they risk staying in the cycle of poverty. Girls who marry early have limited education, health and income-earning opportunities. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court ruling is a good step. But several challenges remain to be to dealt with to really prevent children, especially girls, from being married off. </p>
<p>First, child marriage is often perceived as acceptable in Indonesia and state agencies such as the Religious Affairs Ministry perpetuate this. In some cases, parents may force their child, either girl or boy, into marriage, particularly if the child has an intimate relationship with her or his partner, resulting in pregnancy before marriage. Parents fear that their child commits <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/11/21/she-could-have-been-saved-indramayu-child-bride-dead-after-alleged-abuse.html"><em>zina</em> (extramarital sex), which is deemed sinful in Islam</a>. </p>
<p>A Supreme Court spokesperson recently said that getting married is a right, even for children. A Religious Affairs ministry regulation allows children below the legal age to marry by obtaining a marriage dispensation permit from the local religious court. In 2012, district religious courts approved <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/-/media/plan/documents/resources/plan_child_marriage_report_july_2014.pdf">more than 90% of applications for child marriage</a>, and the number of applications has increased in recent years. </p>
<p>Second, laws that stipulate the minimum age for a person to consent to sexual intercourse also have a gender bias. Under the law on child protection, the minimum age for sexual consent is 18 for both boys and girls. However, under the Indonesian Criminal Code, the minimum age for sexual consent is 12 for girls, while for boys there is no specified age limit. </p>
<p>This creates further problems in protecting girls from sexual abuse. Charges of child sexual abuse can be compromised by conflicting laws on child marriage. In addition, once a girl is married, she is not entitled to child protection services. This adds to concerns about gender equity in how sexual abuse among children is addressed in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Due to the contradictory rules across various laws and the use of judicial discretion, many children, particularly girls, in Indonesia are placed in a vulnerable position where they may be sexually exploited and not protected by law. The different age standards and permissible marriage dispensations can be used selectively and <a href="https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20181213201323-12-353534/aturan-dispensasi-dinilai-masih-jadi-momok-perkawinan-anak">not necessarily in the best interests of the child</a>. </p>
<p>Thus, the ruling of MK is on the right track to protect children, especially girls, from any abuse by eliminating the chances of children being married legally due to different age standards.</p>
<h2>Child protection programs in Indonesia</h2>
<p>The Indonesian government has included child protection as one of five priorities to strengthen human resources in the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2015–2019. The government has launched two pilot programs: PKH (Program Keluarga Harapan, Family Hope Program) in 2007; and PKSA (Program Kesejahteraan Sosial Anak, Social Welfare Program for Children) in 2010. The aim is to protect children by improving their health and education in order to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty. </p>
<p>To support child protection programs at regional levels, the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection designed the Child-Friendly City Program to strengthen the local commitment to child protection. This program was developed in the framework of preventing and responding to all forms of violence against children in the best interests of the child. </p>
<p>Despite these programs, we are still struggling to end child labour, child marriage and other forms of child abuse. Often poverty is a major driver of child abuse and exploitation.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Protecting children against all forms of abuse remains a challenge for Indonesia. The Constitutional Court is to be commended for its efforts in conducting a judicial review of marriage law. This is an important step towards protecting children in Indonesia, but momentum needs to be maintained. </p>
<p>The ball is now in the hands of members of parliament who must proceed towards real action by amending the marriage law on women’s minimum legal age to marry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanuar Farida Wismayanti works for Ministry of Social Affairs RI. She receives funding from Ministry of Social Affairs RI and Griffith University for PhD research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick O'Leary dan Yenny Tjoe tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>In Indonesia, one in four girls marry before the age of 18. It’s hoped a Constitutional Court ruling will spell the end of child marriages.Yanuar Farida Wismayanti, Researcher/PhD Student, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1057042018-10-30T14:09:22Z2018-10-30T14:09:22ZWomen in positions of power could mark a turning point for Ethiopia’s girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242432/original/file-20181026-7041-ad1gwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Having women in power may keep Ethiopia's girls in school.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jazzmany/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within the last month Ethiopia has downsized its cabinet, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/10/16/world/africa/ap-af-ethiopia-women-in-cabinet.html">named</a> women to half the positions and, for the first time, appointed <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/sahle-work-zewde-named-ethiopia-woman-president-181025084046138.html">a woman</a> as president. </p>
<p>These are huge milestones in Ethiopian politics. They could also mark a turning point for the country’s girls as the women ministers are perhaps more likely to pursue policies that benefit girls. In addition, having women in positions of power will mean that girls have role models they can look up to, something that’s not common in the country. </p>
<p>Girls in Ethiopia <a href="http://info.moe.gov.et/emdocs/esaa01.pdf">lag</a> behind boys in school enrollment and academic achievement, especially at higher levels. Female students make up 48% of all primary students, but only a <a href="http://info.moe.gov.et/emdocs/esaa01.pdf">third</a> of students in higher education.</p>
<p>One reason for this are structural constraints – like access to school and poverty – though cultural practices, such as child marriage, also play a significant role.</p>
<p>Another reason girls don’t complete their studies is a lack of role models. <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr328-dhs-final-reports.cfm">Most Ethiopian</a> women, particularly in rural areas, have little education, are seldom in wage-paying jobs and have limited socio-economic status. In schools, <a href="http://info.moe.gov.et/emdocs/esaa01.pdf">only</a> 17% of teachers are women, and only 10% of school leadership positions are occupied by women – adults in positions of power are usually men. </p>
<p>The appointment of many women into positions of power can break stereotypes and inspire girls – potentially influencing their choices and actions.</p>
<h2>Aspirations</h2>
<p>There is increasing recognition among <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195305191.001.0001/acprof-9780195305197-chapter-28">economists</a> and other <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=5765&i=Table%20of%20Contents.htm">social science researchers</a> that an individual’s aspirations influence their choices, behaviour and life outcome. If they don’t feel they’ll improve their position by additional effort or investment, they may <a href="https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/documents/TannerLectures_EstherDuflo_draft.pdf">choose to</a> hold back. But if they see one of their own in positions of power, this can give them hope that some targets are achievable – encouraging more effort and investment. </p>
<p>This has been well documented when it comes to female role models at school and the impact on girls’ education. Studies from <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/51/2/269.short">India</a>, <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2017/02/01/jhr.52.4.1215-7585R1.abstract">South Korea</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775713001684">Chile</a> and the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/125/3/1101/1903648">US</a> show that the presence of female teachers significantly improved the performance of female students. </p>
<p>A study from the US also showed how teachers can influence attitudes towards certain careers – increased <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2010-25580-001">exposure</a> to female experts in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics motivated more girls to pursue careers within these fields.</p>
<h2>Neglected girls</h2>
<p>Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has achieved <a href="http://info.moe.gov.et/emdocs/esaa01.pdf">significant progress</a> in getting all children into school. Between 2000 and 2016, net enrollment in primary school <a href="http://info.moe.gov.et/emdocs/esaa01.pdf">increased </a> from 49% to 100%, mostly due to improved physical access to school. </p>
<p>But the gender gap persisted. The dropout rate among girls is high, partly due to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pauline_Rose4/publication/237731351_Can_gender_equality_in_education_be_attained_Evidence_from_Ethiopia/links/5484a72b0cf283750c3708f4/Can-gender-equality-in-education-be-attained-Evidence-from-Ethiopia.pdf">early marriage</a> but also because education is not always prioritised. </p>
<p>Children in rural Ethiopia are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environment-and-development-economics/article/environmental-resource-collection-implications-for-childrens-schooling-in-tigray-northern-ethiopia/12DB933C0414E197650F091EFC50E4AC">expected to</a> spend hours fetching water, collecting firewood or tending to livestock every day. On top of this, girls have additional household chores like cooking, cleaning and child care. These tasks affects their ability <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jae/article/20/1/90/723642">to enrol</a> and their <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:30b96517-0c60-44a4-9f65-0dff4144f22a">academic performance</a> at school. </p>
<p>Also, if parents have to ration schooling due to poverty, it’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pauline_Rose4/publication/237731351_Can_gender_equality_in_education_be_attained_Evidence_from_Ethiopia/links/5484a72b0cf283750c3708f4/Can-gender-equality-in-education-be-attained-Evidence-from-Ethiopia.pdf">more likely</a> that they will send the boys because they believe it will mean the greatest return on investment. This means girls miss out on their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02671520903350297">small window</a> of educational opportunity. </p>
<p>Many parents have <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jae/article/26/5/561/4096500">lower aspirations</a> for the higher educational and career achievements for girls than they do for boys. This is because of the <a href="https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8820.pdf">stereotype</a> that girls and women are primarily home makers or assistants, while boys and men are producers and leaders. </p>
<p>Ethiopia’s women in power, may be socially removed from the girl in rural Ethiopia, but their appointment may have huge implications for their educational achievement and social empowerment. Experience <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/01/11/science.1212382">in India</a> show that bringing more women into leadership positions eliminated the large gender gap in education. Exposure to female leaders also led to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/124/4/1497/1917190">change in voter attitudes</a> encouraging more women to stand for, and win, elected positions. </p>
<p>It’s possible that the recent high level appointments of women in Ethiopia may have a snowball effect with further gender balance at lower levels of government and across sectors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sosina Bezu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The appointment of women into positions of power can break stereotypes and inspire girls.Sosina Bezu, Senior Researcher in Development Economics, Chr. Michelsen InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/973692018-06-06T03:58:51Z2018-06-06T03:58:51ZWhat’s driving the sky-high child marriage rates in South Sudan?<p>Last month, a Sudanese court sentenced a 19-year-old woman to death for killing her husband who had repeatedly raped her. The prosecution of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/24/sudanese-teenager-who-killed-rapist-husband-appeals-death-sentence-forced-marriage-noura-hussein">Noura Hussein</a>, forcibly married at the age of 16, has triggered global outrage and drawn attention to the millions of girls worldwide who are married against their will. </p>
<p>A high-profile campaign has been initiated to overturn Hussein’s death sentence, with celebrities such as Naomi Campbell, Emma Watson, and former Australian Prime Minister <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sudan-teen-appeals-death-sentence-for-killing-rapist-husband">Julia Gillard lending their support</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"997419900867108865"}"></div></p>
<p>The Sudanese court’s decision to apply the death penalty in the case is shocking. However, the practice of child forced marriage is putting the lives of millions of adolescent girls at risk around the world. <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/where-does-it-happen/">One in five girls worldwide</a> is estimated to be married before the age of 18, <a href="https://theconversation.com/child-marriage-is-still-legal-in-the-us-88846">including even in parts of the United States</a>. </p>
<p>Not only are these girls often left isolated from their families and support networks, they face a greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and experiencing dangerous complications in childbirth. They are also much more likely to experience domestic violence and be taken out of school. Often, they are married to much older men and with limited economic opportunities are more likely to live in poverty.</p>
<h2>Child forced marriage in South Sudan</h2>
<p>Rates of child forced marriage are exacerbated by conflict and crisis, which have been particularly pronounced problems in <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-sudan-72872">South Sudan</a>, the nation that split from Sudan in 2011 following decades of debilitating war. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-25427965">Conflict has continued nearly unabated since then</a>, displacing millions of people and causing widespread food shortages.</p>
<p>The minimum legal age for marriage in South Sudan is 18. This is set out in the <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/IMG/pdf/The_Draft_Transitional_Constitution_of_the_ROSS2-2.pdf">transitional constitution</a> and <a href="http://mgcswss.org/wp-content/uploads/South-Sudan-Child-Friendly-Act.pdf">the Child Act of 2008</a>. The minimum age limit is much higher than in neighbouring <a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/sudan/">Sudan</a>, which allows a girl to marry with a parent’s permission at just 10 years of age. </p>
<p>Despite the laws in South Sudan, however, <a href="https://www.unicef.org/appeals/files/UNICEF_South_Sudan_Situation_Assessment_of_Children_and_Women_2015.pdf">UNICEF</a> estimates 52% of girls are married there before their 18th birthday, the fifth-highest rate of child marriage in the world. (In Sudan, the rate is 34%.)</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="6rk6b" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6rk6b/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>Adolescent pregnancy frequently follows early marriage, as well. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_SOWC_2016.pdf">At 158 births per 1,000 women</a> aged 15-19, South Sudan has one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in the world. Combined with one of the world’s worst <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?locations=SS">maternal mortality rates at 789 deaths per 100,000 life births</a>, early marriage has dire consequences for adolescent girls.</p>
<h2>Drivers of early and forced marriage</h2>
<p>As part of a recent study between <a href="https://plan-international.org/publications/girls-crisis-south-sudan">Plan International and Monash GPS</a>, we conducted research with adolescent girls in South Sudan and in refugee camps in northern Uganda. We found that there are numerous and overlapping drivers for forced child marriage in South Sudan.</p>
<p>The current food crisis and economic downturn means that the collection of a bride price makes early and forced marriage a viable – yet negative – coping mechanism for families. One of our research participants, a member of civil society in the capital, Juba, remarked “with this current situation some parents take their girls as assets, which are sold expensively, so in most cases most parents sell off their daughters for money.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/little-cause-for-celebration-on-south-sudans-birthday-15783">Little cause for celebration on South Sudan's birthday</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Nimule, another noted “Due to the conflict, most of the parents are forcing their girls to get married so that they can get money to survive in this current situation.”</p>
<p>We found family separation increased the risk of early and forced marriage. Many adolescent girls who, due to the ongoing conflict, are separated from their parents and residing with extended family, are far more vulnerable to forced marriage. This is primarily driven by male relatives such as uncles and cousins.</p>
<p>We also found that once married, girls nearly never return to school. One of the adolescent girls we interviewed told us: “The future is not good at all … many girls will end up getting married as a means of survival.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-violence-is-off-the-charts-in-south-sudan-but-a-new-female-head-chief-could-help-bring-change-96946">Sexual violence is off the charts in South Sudan – but a new female head chief could help bring change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But forced child marriage cannot be explained simply as a transactional arrangement for families to secure resources to survive. Its prevalence results from an interplay of factors, including entrenched gender inequality, harmful gender norms, continued conflict and communal violence, and limits on the agency and decision-making of adolescent girls, all of which conspire to put them at risk.</p>
<p>In some instances, girls actively sought to mitigate the threat of forced marriage by engaging in small-scale livelihood activities such as collecting firewood or selling goods in the market, or showing their value to their family and community through educational performance and household labour.</p>
<h2>Efforts to address the forced marriage of children</h2>
<p>Putting an end to child forced marriage in South Sudan and other countries requires addressing all the drivers of this practice, such as poverty and food insecurity, limited access to resources, sustainable livelihoods and education, and lack of sexual and reproductive healthcare. </p>
<p>At the same time, humanitarian actors must work with the community to address the lack of awareness on the rights of girls and the legal frameworks in place to uphold them. </p>
<p>Waiting until another adolescent girl is on trial for murder is too late.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author would like to acknowledge the work of Hannah Jay, a senior research coordinator at the Monash University Gender, Peace & Security Centre, in writing this article.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Lee-Koo receives funding from Plan International.</span></em></p>More than half of girls in South Sudan are married before the age of 18. Endemic conflict and food shortages are only exacerbating the problem.Katrina Lee-Koo, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943612018-04-10T21:55:12Z2018-04-10T21:55:12ZThe truth about maternal death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213916/original/file-20180409-114076-ktce7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this 2012 photo, a midwife holds a newborn baby boy she has just delivered by flashlight in Guinea-Bissau. The African country is one of the deadliest places in the world to give birth, with a high rate of maternal death. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Women die in childbirth at alarming rates. Maternal death is an excellent example of what the famous economist and philosopher <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674060470&content=reviews">Amartya Sen</a> calls a <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/book-of-the-week-the-idea-of-justice/408455.article">“remediable injustice”</a> — a condition that is fundamentally unfair and within our capacity to change.</p>
<p>Access to health services is better in more affluent, developed countries, so women die of pregnancy and childbirth-related complications at much lower rates than their counterparts in developing countries. </p>
<p>Better access to health services and skilled practitioners — nurses, midwives, medical doctors — is one of the keys to improving maternal mortality ratios in the developing world. </p>
<p>The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) indicates the number of maternal deaths that occur for every 100,000 live births. <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT">In 2015, the world average was 216.</a></p>
<p>The highest MMRs are found in Sub-Saharan Africa (547) and in low-income countries (496). Conversely, the lowest rates of maternal death are found in high-income countries (10), the European Union (eight) and North America (12).</p>
<h2>Scarce resources</h2>
<p>These numbers reveal much about the disparities that cause high rates of maternal death in poor countries and low rates in affluent countries. Resources are scarce in developing countries, and those that are available in the form of medical expertise, facilities and supplies are distributed unevenly.</p>
<p>According <a href="http://www.who.int/gho/maternal_health/mortality/maternal_mortality_text/en/">to the World Health Organization</a>, the leading causes of maternal death include “haemorrhage, hypertension, infections, and indirect causes, mostly due to interaction between pre-existing medical conditions and pregnancy.”</p>
<p>Most of these causes are treatable with simple procedures and medicines. Most maternal deaths are preventable if women have access to skilled providers and health clinics during pregnancy, childbirth and in the immediate post-partum period.</p>
<p>But the truth about maternal death is not that simple. While it’s true that better access to health care before, during and after childbirth will reduce incidents of maternal death, there are other, more complex factors to consider. </p>
<p>Barriers to access to health services go beyond the lack of hospitals and doctors to implicate social and cultural dynamics. In other words, women struggle to access available resources due to the realities of poverty, racial discrimination, gender inequality and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/world/americas/el-salvador-abortion-ban.html">criminalization of abortion</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213967/original/file-20180409-114080-1beu7kl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2012 photo, 12-year-old Zali Idy poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger. Zali was married a year earlier, at the age of 11. Child marriage affects nearly 15 million girls around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, women are vulnerable to complicated pregnancies through the practices of <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage/">child marriage</a> (and adolescent pregnancy), high <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN">fertility rates</a> (which increases the potential for obstructed labour), <a href="https://theconversation.com/patriarchal-culture-male-biology-deadly-mix-for-violence-against-women-88005">patriarchal customs</a> that make women’s health, nutrition and education unimportant <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/charts-gender-inequality-women-deliver">and policies that fail to respect human rights.</a> </p>
<h2>The horrifying case of Shanti Devi</h2>
<p>For example, in 2010 in India, a woman named <a href="https://docs.escr-net.org/usr_doc/HRLN_Summary_-_Laxmi_Mandal_v_Deen_Dayal_Hospital.pdf">Shanti Devi</a> was denied medical care, to which she was formally entitled through the Indian Constitution, because she was from an “untouchable” group and pregnant with her third child. </p>
<p>India maintains both official and unofficial elements of a <a href="https://thewire.in/health/a-two-child-policy-wont-take-india-closer-to-vikas">two-child policy</a> in accordance with its population-control objectives.</p>
<p>She was turned away from the hospital and died in a ditch. Her death sparked global outrage and a court case that assigned responsibility to the Indian government and provided a clear definition of the <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137408334">right to maternal health</a>.</p>
<p>Shanti Devi’s status as Dalit and racialized conspired to further increase her chances of maternal death. This case demonstrates the paradox of India, a country that is both economically strong and technologically advanced but also plagued by poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>India’s overall MMR is 174, which is lower than regional and country classification standards. However, in some areas of the country, the MMR is as high as 300, <a href="http://niti.gov.in/content/maternal-mortality-ratio-mmr-100000-live-births#">according to India’s own estimates.</a> </p>
<p>The problem of inequality for different populations in India persists, although in all regions and among all populations in that country, MMRs are declining. </p>
<h2>Maternal death rates rise in North America</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, this is not the case in North America, where MMRs have increased in recent years. In Canada, <a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44874/9789241503631_eng.pdf?sequence=1">maternal death rates went from six in 1990 to 12 in 2010,</a> likely due to an increase in caesarean sections, IVF births, older mothers and other health conditions.</p>
<p>In 2015, the MMR had returned to seven, although the maternal health crisis has not abated, as there is evidence that <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT">death rates for Indigenous women</a> are <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/indigenous-maternal-health-program-1.4130303">disproportionately high.</a> </p>
<p>In the United States, maternal death rates vary according to place and social status and are getting worse, not better. While maternal death rates have been declining around the world in most countries, they have been rising steadily in the U.S. </p>
<p>In 1990, the MMR in the U.S. was 12; in 2015 it was 14. The increase <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding">is even more dramatic in Texas</a>, where the MMR went from around 17 in 2010 to 35.8 in 2014. What’s more, when MMRs are disaggregated to account for race, maternal death rates are substantially higher for African-American women than for white women in Texas and across the nation.</p>
<h2>Rates up for all women in Texas</h2>
<p>In Texas, while rates increased for all women, the MMRs roughly doubled over the period of 2006-2015 from 19.4 to 38 for non-Hispanic white women, and from 41.6 to 85.6 for non-Hispanic Black women. </p>
<p>The MMRs for Hispanic women were lower as raw scores, but this population experienced the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/birt.12330">highest rate of increase in death rates</a> — 62 per cent — over this period.</p>
<p>The MMRs for Hispanic women also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/birt.12330">increased dramatically</a> during this period, from 12.6 to 20.5.</p>
<p>In 2013, I had the privilege of conducting research in south Texas with women of Mexican origin living along the U.S.-Mexico border. Some were American citizens, others had more precarious immigration status. </p>
<p>All revealed that they had few options for maternal health care, and that they were restricted, by virtue of their immigration status, language and health insurance entitlements, from asking questions and gaining a full understanding of what was happening to them during pregnancy and childbirth.</p>
<p>Some women said that they had undergone caesarean sections without knowing why, and some had been encouraged to have a surgical birth followed by immediate sterilization, for complex reasons that appeared to be both beneficial and oppressive.</p>
<p>The conclusion to be drawn, from both <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Maternal-Transition-A-North-South-Politics-of-Pregnancy-and-Childbirth/Johnson/p/book/9780415745109">my own research</a> and the current rise in maternal death rates in Texas, is that low-status of women, especially racialized women, and punitive public policies, particularly in areas of health care and immigration, are a deadly combination.</p>
<h2>Governments must act</h2>
<p>The crisis in maternal health <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg3">is the focus</a> of broad <a href="http://www.who.int/life-course/partners/global-strategy/en/">global campaigns</a> and <a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Maternal-Newborn-and-Child-Health">detailed targeted initiatives</a>. Much of this focus is devoted to generating increased attention and resources for maternal health. </p>
<p>However, global agencies and individual countries must do more to address the complex contextual factors that undermine maternal health. </p>
<p>Maternal death rates will only continue to decline if there are broad societal changes for all women. Governments play a leading role in perpetuating maternal death and will have to assume greater responsibility to reduce it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Candace Johnson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
</span></em></p>It’s not just women in impoverished countries dying in childbirth. The maternal death rate in both Canada and the U.S. has risen, particularly among Indigenous and African-American women.Candace Johnson, Professor of Political Science, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/924582018-02-27T22:17:10Z2018-02-27T22:17:10ZEnding child marriage in Lebanon: films like ‘Nour’ can make a difference<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207879/original/file-20180226-140217-1bog1n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The movie Nour brings the issue of 'child marriage' on the front scene in Lebanon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6013182/mediaviewer/rm2409976576">IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In February 2018 a <a href="https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1099721/trois-dignitaires-religieux-debattent-de-lage-du-mariage.html">debate took place</a> at the University of Saint-Esprit de Kaslik between the heads of three major religious communities in Lebanon, hoping to lead a change within local practices about child marriage.</p>
<p>A year ago, a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/12/lebanon-pass-bill-end-child-marriage">draft law</a> was proposed by activists and politicians to set a minimum age for marriage. A present, Lebanon does not have one. <a href="https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1096598/les-feministes-revoient-leurs-ambitions-a-la-baisse.html">Earlier in 2017</a> several draft laws were submitted to parliament that would <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/12/lebanon-pass-bill-end-child-marriage">raise the minimum age to 18</a>.</p>
<p>Renewed attention is being given to the issue of child marriage in Lebanon as increasing numbers of young refugee girls are being married off as a response to the conflict and forced displacement. A recent study done by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) in Lebanon found that fear of gender-based violence (GBV) – and especially rape – drove many families to marry their daughters with the aim of <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Changing-Norms-of-Child-Marriage-in-Conflict.pdf">“protecting their honour”</a>. Many families also saw marriage as a way of ensuring that their daughters were in a more stable socioeconomic position than they would be if they remained single and in the familial household. Outside of refugee communities, nearly <a href="https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_SOWC_2016.pdf">6 percent</a> of women in Lebanon between 20 to 24 years old were married before the age of 18.</p>
<h2>Child marriage</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/lebanon/">Personal-status laws</a> are the main issue: there are currently <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/193107.pdf">18 formally recognised</a> religious sects and 15 personal-status codes. These overwhelmingly discriminate against women across all sects, and do not guarantee basic rights, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/19/lebanon-laws-discriminate-against-women">according to Human Rights Watch</a>. A minimum age for marriage does exist in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/in-lebanon-a-tangle-of-religious-laws-govern-life-and-love/245857/">some of the personal-status codes</a>, though the courts can choose to make exceptions in certain cases in favour of a lower age.</p>
<p>In allowing such marriages, Lebanon remains in violation of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionaInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>, despite having <a href="http://civilsociety-centre.org/sites/default/files/resources/Child%20Rights%20Situation%20Analysis%20for%20Lebanon.pdf">ratified the agreement</a> without reservations in 1991.</p>
<p>Civil society has been fighting this issue for the last few years, trying to pressure the Lebanese government into adopting a legal minimum age for marriage.</p>
<p>In 2014, the <a href="http://iwsaw.lau.edu.lb/">Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World</a> (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University (LAU) – which I lead – in collaboration with the <a href="http://nclw.org.lb/en/">National Commission for Lebanese Women</a> (NCLW) organised and launched an advocacy campaign called <a href="http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Mar-05/249263-commission-launches-campaign-against-underage-marriage.ashx">Protect Underage Girls from Early Marriage</a>. The Institute is now working with the Women’s Refugee Commission and Johns Hopkins to complete a research project on <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-global/syrian-girls-are-being-pu_b_12524790.html">child marriage among Syrian refugees</a> in Lebanon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207877/original/file-20180226-140200-1gwce8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawings by young Syrian refugee girls in a community centre in southern Lebanon promote the prevention of child marriage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drawings_by_young_Syrian_refugee_girls_in_a_community_centre_in_southern_Lebanon_promote_the_prevention_of_child_marriage._(14496389777).jpg">Russel Watkins/DFID, UK Department for International Development</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year, representatives for Lebanon at the Committee of the Rights of the Child submitted a report on the country’s fulfilment of its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to an internal source, the issue of child marriage was heavily discussed by the experts on the committee.</p>
<h2>Challenging societal perspectives</h2>
<p>The fight to end child marriage in Lebanon is gaining momentum. Through several public campaigns, and continued support of the draft laws, child-safety organisations continue to address the issue of child marriage as an issue of human rights.</p>
<p>One such initiative brings fathers together to discuss the <a href="https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2018/01/23/my-daughter-demands-more-the-men-fighting-child-marriage-in-lebanon-2">need to protect their daughters</a>, and what marriage of a young girl can do to her future, and to the future of her family.</p>
<p>Other initiatives take a more artistic approach to raising awareness. The award-winning Lebanese filmmaker <a href="http://www.khalilzaarour.com/">Khalil Dreyfus Zaarour</a>, wrote, directed and produced <a href="http://www.nourthemovie.com"><em>Nour</em></a>, a feature fiction film about forced child marriage, <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2017/09/uncivil-union">building on true stories</a> of girls forced into marriage at a young age.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1oAYNQvfqN0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer of the movie <em>Nour</em>.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the film, 15-year-old Nour is forced to marry Maurice, an older man whom she despises. Overnight, her carefree summer morphs into claustrophobic confinement and household chores. Nour mourns the loss of her childhood and scattered dreams.</p>
<p>Zaarour believes it to be his duty as a filmmaker to shed light on challenging human rights issues and expose inequalities – and he was particularly drawn to this issue. To ensure accuracy of the story, Zaarour met dozens of women, listened to their accounts and adapted it to fit the screen:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to fight for equality, to abolish patriarchy, to live in a world where women and men have the same rights and opportunities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the film, Nour abruptly has to deal with the forcible end of her childhood, a reality too many young girls must contend with well before they are prepared to assume the role of adults. More dangerous, these marriages likely force girls into sexual relationships they are not prepared for – and pregnancies that their young bodies cannot yet accommodate.</p>
<h2>A draft law is not enough</h2>
<p>While the draft laws are a positive step toward setting a minimum legal age of marriage across personal-status laws, there are still many obstacles. Lebanon’s unstable political situation remains a challenge, especially given the unexpected, albeit brief <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-lebanon-france-macron.html">resignation</a> of Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the upcoming <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20171215-lebanon-may-2018-date-long-delayed-parliamentary-elections-hariri">parliamentary elections</a>, tentatively scheduled for May 6.</p>
<p>Similarly, the Syrian refugee crisis continues to put pressure on an already-weakened Lebanese infrastructure. Both Hariri and President Michel Aoun have <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/lebanon/the-daily-star-lebanon/20171021/281496456523780">warned</a>) of the dire consequences Lebanon will face politically and socioeconomically if the country does not receive the necessary support from both the international and regional communities.</p>
<p>These issues all work to stall any mobilisation around the issue of child marriage in Lebanon. The current focus across media platforms is overwhelmingly dedicated to upcoming parliamentary elections, with gender issues playing a negligible role.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207882/original/file-20180226-122025-1dqzrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nour’s teenage life is destroyed by her marriage to a much older man, a practice still common in Lebanon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6013182/mediaviewer/rm2409976576">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Challenges for feminists</h2>
<p>Though proponents of a minimum legal age of marriage remain active, there are a number of factors stalling progress. A large segment of the population consider child marriage to be an issue only among refugee populations. Others argue over what exactly the minimum legal age should be, and whether or not this should be something enforced across personal-status laws. Given the challenges and Lebanon’s patchy track record in terms of implementing laws that prioritise protection and prevention for vulnerable women and girls, activists remain sceptical.</p>
<p>Another challenge is the terminology in use. We refer interchangeably to “early marriage”, “child marriage”, “forced marriage” and so on. The reality is that these marriages affect girls, and marriage of a girl under 18 likely entails a sexual relationship – in which case this is to be considered child rape. Our concern is that the interchangeable (and rather benign) terminology fails to convey the seriousness of this crime.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, films like <em>Nour</em> may reach a wider audience and could even result in legislative changes in Lebanon – and beyond. As Zaarour concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My goal is to raise these issues on the screen and change the way people think about issues that are harmful and discriminatory. It’s why I focused on child marriage – and also is the driving force behind my next film. I want people to accept and respect each other no matter how different they are.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>“Nour” was screened on February 26 at the Institute for Women Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University in Beirut</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Renewed attention is being given to the issue of child marriage in Lebanon as increasing numbers of young refugee girls are being married off as a response to the conflict and forced displacement.Lina Abirafeh, Director, Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American UniversityGabriella Nassif, Project Manager and Researcher at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873822017-11-16T18:13:41Z2017-11-16T18:13:41ZJobs and paid-for schooling can keep Tanzanian girls from early marriages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194351/original/file-20171113-27616-w73f5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many girls in Dar es Salaam's slums drop out of school because of the costs involved.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ICT4D.at/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sub-Saharan Africa is home to <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">four of the top five countries</a> in early marriage – or child marriage – rates: Niger, Chad, Mali and Central African Republic. Despite decades of campaigning to restrict or forbid early marriage, little has changed for the world’s poorest women. The percentage of these particularly poor women who were in a conjugal union by the age of 18 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/UNICEF-Child-Marriage-Brochure-low-Single(1).pdf">has remained unchanged</a> for the continent as a whole since 1990 – and has <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/UNICEF-Child-Marriage-Brochure-low-Single(1).pdf">actually risen in East Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Early marriage appears to have absolutely no benefits. It <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075757">accelerates population growth</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075757">decreases women’s participation in the labour force</a>. It also reduces <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530891498511398503/Economic-impacts-of-child-marriage-global-synthesis-report">a country’s overall national earnings</a>. Girls who marry before they turn 18 are at <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/press/state-world-population-2013-motherhood-childhood">greater risk</a> of childbirth-related complications that are the leading cause of death worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19. </p>
<p>But what’s not often reported in the media is that some girls themselves want to marry early. I discovered this when I <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2017.1390162">conducted interviews</a> with 171 people, most of them Muslim women, in two low-income neighbourhoods in Tanzania’s capital city Dar es Salaam. </p>
<p>The poorest girls and women see themselves as having few possibilities to earn an income for themselves. Even before they marry, girls from poor families must often resort to premarital sexual relations with their boyfriends who provide food and money. For many low-income Tanzanians, it’s also normal to start thinking about marriage at roughly age 15. Established cultural expectations in many ethnic groups suggest that adulthood begins at age 15 or 16. </p>
<p>Yet even those girls and parents who would like to delay marriage often have little choice because of poverty and the fact that women in slum neighbourhoods have fewer opportunities to earn an income than men do. Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is one possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school for longer is another.</p>
<h2>Choices</h2>
<p>One factor that pushes some girls into early marriage is the hidden costs associated with education. Many Tanzanian girls <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR243/FR243%5B24June2011%5D.pdf">drop out</a> after primary school. Primary education in the country is mandatory by law and is nominally free of charge. But numerous hidden costs exist: additional fees, uniforms, books and transportation. </p>
<p>Only a small percentage of students achieve good enough exam scores to be accepted to low-priced government secondary schools. This forces the rest into private secondary schools, which are usually too expensive for the poorest urban residents. Parents recognise the value of education and want to school their daughters. They just can’t afford to do so.</p>
<p>Sometimes the girls themselves wish to discontinue their studies. They perceive the transactional intimacy provided through marriage as offering a more secure future than an expensive secondary education.</p>
<p>After age 15, girls are expected to be self-sufficient to gain respect in the eyes of others. Marriage is viewed as a more likely way to gain that respect than through years of education with its high costs and uncertain rewards.</p>
<p>The people <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2017.1390162">I interviewed</a> felt that premarital sex was seen as shameful in their neighbourhoods. Relying on a husband or fiancé for money, though, is a respectable means of displaying independence. </p>
<p>When girls drop out of school, cannot find work and don’t have enough starting capital to sell food or other goods in their neighbourhoods, early marriage is often the only culturally approved way to be a productive adult. It can be seen as a sign of “success” for a girl: it means she has a good <em>tabia</em>; a good character.</p>
<h2>Employment could help</h2>
<p>Cultural traditions are a popular scapegoat for policymakers. But these should not be blamed for what are perceived elsewhere in the world as “backward” practices. Trying to eradicate cultural attitudes when these are grounded in economic and educational realities does little to change people’s behaviour. </p>
<p>Women living in the poorest parts of any city need policies that create employment opportunities. This would offer girls who might otherwise choose early marriage other choices.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/Skinner_WIEGO_WP5.pdf">Tanzania was a leader in the 1990s</a> in Africa when it came to inclusive policies towards informal and street traders. But a rapidly growing population and competition among traders means many women cannot afford the licenses and permits needed to set up a business in a busy area with many customers. They may also not have sufficient capital or may need to stay close to home to care for family members.</p>
<p>Ultra-low interest micro loan programmes serving the poorest areas of the city could be organised for women who have no option but to obtain income from the smallest and least visible vending niches in the city. </p>
<h2>Making education more attractive</h2>
<p>Another option, or one that could run in parallel with improved access to work opportunities, could centre on education. Tanzania could consider employment-oriented education policies and subsidising secondary education for the poorest students. This would provide motivation for girls and their families to continue girls’ studies. These are issues over which poor families themselves have little control: structural change needs to come from above. </p>
<p>As long as girls and their families see the most viable – and morally acceptable – option for a girl’s economic survival to be early marriage with a male partner whose earning opportunities are greater than hers, the practice of early marriage is unlikely to decline among the urban poor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Stark received funding from the Academy of Finland for this research. </span></em></p>Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is a possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school is another.Laura Stark, Professor of Ethnology, University of JyväskyläLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805222017-08-15T11:16:42Z2017-08-15T11:16:42ZFamily politics moves centre stage in Germany ahead of election<p>As Germany heads towards federal elections in September, two new laws have opened up debates about family values, multiculturalism and diversity in the country. The first banned child marriages, the second legalised same-sex marriage. Neither law came out of nowhere, and the discussions about them – and political calculations behind their introduction – are directly related. </p>
<p>In 2015, 890,000 Syrians and other immigrants from across the Middle East, North Africa and south-eastern Europe registered for asylum in Germany. This sparked heated debates across the country about the limits of multiculturalism. Child marriage among immigrants seemed to symbolise the failure of Germany to integrate its new residents – especially in matters <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/cologne-new-years-eve-mass-sex-attacks-leaked-document-a7130476.html">related to sexuality</a> and the treatment of women. It also flashed up more longstanding resentment about the level of integration of Germany’s large, predominantly Turkish Muslim population. </p>
<p>After months of debate, in early June the German Bundestag <a href="https://www.thelocal.de/20170602/german-parliament-passes-law-ending-child-marriage">declared a ban</a> on marriages involving under 18-year-olds. Marriages involving minors under 16 that had been conducted abroad are also no longer valid, even if the minors are not German citizens. And, courts will be allowed to void marriages in which a spouse was 16 or 17 at the time of the wedding. Case-by-case exceptions will be made only for marriages involving adults who had been wed as children. </p>
<p>Despite the movement against child marriage, the phenomenon was not particularly widespread in Germany. In July 2016, there <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/05/germany-dissolve-child-marriages/">were 1,475 recorded cases</a> of married minors, with the majority from Syria. Nonetheless, the law easily passed in parliament and went into effect on July 22. </p>
<h2>Same-sex marriage struggle</h2>
<p>In contrast to the movement against child marriage, the campaign for same-sex marriage had been brewing for over a decade. Germany enacted a law on civil partnerships in 2001. It gave same-sex couples some – but not all – rights enjoyed by married spouses. As <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2017/06/30/gay-marriage-around-the-world-2013/">numerous other countries</a> passed laws on same-sex marriage, Germany remained resolute in its position against the policy. </p>
<p>Since 2005, Germany has had a conservative government led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has upheld traditional notions about the family, with marriage seen as heterosexual, monogamous and patriarchal. The chancellor, Angela Merkel, had long been clear about her opposition to same-sex marriage. However, she allowed a free parliamentary vote to take place on the issue in late June and the Bundestag overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/30/same-sex-marriage-bill-passed-germany-equal-family-rights">approved</a> the legislation. Merkel actually voted <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-same-sex-marriage-vote-germany-legalisation-lgbt-rights-christian-democrat-man-woman-a7815846.html">against the policy</a>. Nonetheless, the first same-sex weddings can take place as early as October 2017.</p>
<p>Both marriage policies proved convenient tools for Merkel’s government to garner popularity ahead of the elections. The ban on child marriage could assuage CDU voters wary of immigration. At the same time, it could ensure that CDU voters steered clear of the siren calls of <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-germanys-right-wing-afd/a-37208199">Alternative for Germany</a>, a right-wing, anti-immigrant party. And, the free vote on same-sex marriage stole the thunder of the rival Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had emphasised the policy as part of its platform. </p>
<p>Questions about multiculturalism and about sexuality rights were both addressed in one fell swoop with these two new laws, perhaps shaping the CDU’s chances at the polls in the upcoming election. Since early June, the CDU has been <a href="http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/emnid.htm">predicted</a> to hold around 38% of the vote in September, around ten to fifteen points ahead of the SDP.</p>
<h2>Family politics</h2>
<p>These debates in contemporary Germany about the nature of the family – with marriage as its linchpin – have much deeper roots. They go back to conflicts over the family, diversity and different meanings of modernity since the late 19th century. In 1875, four years after Germany was created, marriage suddenly became the uncontested domain of the state rather than the church. Couples from different religions could now marry easily in civil ceremonies, without having to worry about converting to another confession or gaining special dispensations from their parish priest. </p>
<p>The move to liberalise marriage was, however, short-lived. In the early 20th century, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/german-women-for-empire-1884-1945">marriages</a> between “whites” and “natives” were banned in parts of Germany’s growing overseas empire. The policy sought to ensure the racial and cultural purity of the family. Only those children of mixed marriages who seemed culturally “German” enough could pass as German. The rest were relegated to the status of “natives” and stripped of full inheritance and citizenship rights. </p>
<p>Bans on mixed-marriage served, in some ways, as precursors to Germany’s most infamous marriage policy: <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/nurturing-nation-purifying-volk-weimar-and-nazi-family-policy-19181945?format=HB&isbn=9780521861847">the ban</a> on marriage with Jews (as well as the disabled and other “undesirables”) in the Third Reich in 1935.</p>
<p>Four years after Hitler’s Germany collapsed in 1945, marriage again became the subject of a national reform project. Under the <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0040">Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany</a>, the new constitution in a newly Christian Democratic West Germany, marriage and the family garnered pride of place, meriting special protection. The family once again stood at the core of German state projects. It was both a symbol of national identity and central to the law. After a period of war and dictatorship, the family after 1945 seemed a bulwark of stability that could be guaranteed by clear-cut gender roles and hierarchies for women, men and children.</p>
<p>The new laws on child marriage and same-sex marriage point to a specific understanding of the family in Germany that embraces certain forms of diversity and restricts others. Constitutional understandings of the family have come open to new interpretations that prioritise the protection of children alongside the right to choose one’s sexuality. But these debates also echo a longstanding consensus within Germany that the family is central to the nation and a matter to be governed by the state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Moses receives funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship scheme for the project 'Marriage and Cultural Diversity in the German Empire' (MARDIV / Grant #707072). </span></em></p>Two new laws have grappled with ideas of diversity and the traditional family in Germany.Julia Moses, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722822017-03-08T07:54:21Z2017-03-08T07:54:21ZBangladesh’s new child marriage law swings in the wrong direction<p>Bangladesh is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/gender-equity-in-schools-in-muslim-countries-it-can-be-done-32271">global poster child</a> when it comes to improving women’s status in the developing and the Muslim worlds. It also outranks all of its South Asian neighbours in terms of gender equality. </p>
<p>The World Economic Forum’s <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/">Global Gender Gap Report</a> has placed Bangladesh above India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka for two consecutive years. In 2016, the country was placed 72nd among 144 countries while India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan were placed 87th, 110th, 100th and 143th respectively. </p>
<p>The country is ahead of India and Pakistan in terms of enrolment in primary and secondary education and has leapfrogged both in <a href="https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2014/12/paths-to-development-is-there-a-bangladesh-surprise/">immunisation rates and child mortality reduction</a>. Perhaps unexpectedly, it also tops South Asian countries on the <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/south-asia/">political empowerment gender gap</a>.</p>
<p>These achievements are <a href="http://www.epw.in/journal/2013/44/commentary/bangladeshs-achievements-social-development-indicators.html">exceptional</a> considering the fact that Bangladesh is poorer than India and Pakistan. But the prevalence of child marriage in the country is a departure from this <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1400134X">list of many cases</a> of “positive deviance” in gender and social statistics. </p>
<h2>A significant blemish</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">UNICEF</a>, Bangladesh has the highest rate of marriage in the world among girls under 15. And it is ranked eighth in terms of marriage under the age of 18. </p>
<p>The country is suffering from a <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/9/child-marriage-reaches-epidemic-rates-in-bangladesh.html">child bride “epidemic”</a> in which one in three girls is married below the age of 18. By contrast, a much smaller proportion of girls in Pakistan marry young, although the 2016 WEF report ranked Pakistan second to last in the world for gender inequality.</p>
<p>At the July 2014 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/girl-summit-2014">Girl Summit in London</a>, the Bangladesh government pledged to revise the country’s Child Marriage Restraint Act. Its aim was to end marriage of girls under the age of 15 by 2021. </p>
<p>The government has <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/bill-passed-okaying-underage-marriage-special-cases-1368451">just passed a bill</a> penalising early marriages. But it includes a <a href="http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/11/24/child-marriage-restraint-act-2016-gets-final-nod/">controversial clause</a> saying “under special circumstances” and with the consent of both the court and parents, girls under 18 may be married with no penalties for those involved.</p>
<p>Under the previous law, marriage under the age of 18 was legal for the people marrying because the age of marriage is governed by personal laws based on religion, including both Islam and Hinduism. But it penalised acts related to the marriage of a girl under 18, including facilitating or arranging the marriage, and registering or contracting it. </p>
<p>The new law takes the same approach. But the previous law provided no exceptions in terms of when acts relating to child marriage was an offence. Because the new law does this, it is being seen as <a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20170112182557-wubd3/">a step in the wrong direction</a>.</p>
<p>The chief of the parliamentary standing committee on women and children’s affairs, Rebeka Momin, has defended the move, saying that keeping the special provision would not increase child marriage. <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/bill-passed-okaying-underage-marriage-special-cases-1368451">She stressed that</a> “there was no alternative to keeping the special provision considering the socio-economic reality, especially in rural areas.”</p>
<p>The amendment grants more powers to the parents of girls under 18. It is worrying because it not only <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/child-marriage-act-rights-bodies-decry-special-provision-1368946">overrides public opinion</a> but objections raised by <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/02/bangladesh-legalizing-child-marriage-threatens-girls-safety">experts</a> on children’s health and rights. And it reduces the deterrent effect of the previous law.</p>
<p>Child marriage is driven by a <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/MarryingTooYoung.pdf">number of factors</a> such as low rates of education for girls, high fertility rate, the low social status of women, extreme poverty and concern over insecurity. It is no surprise that countries such as India, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, South Sudan and Uganda are global hot spots for child marriage and also belong to the bottom quarter of countries in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report. </p>
<p>Bangladesh’s child marriage prevalence is not unique in South Asia either. Nepal also ranks highly, despite being <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/south-asia/">one of the top five climbers</a> over the past decade on the overall global gender gap index and on educational attainment. </p>
<p>Clearly, there is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/11/closing-gender-gap-developing-world/">no single solution</a> to the problem. But the exception clause is certainly an oddity. </p>
<h2>Bangladesh’s deviation</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/12/many-countries-allow-child-marriage/">Most countries have some form of exemption</a> to their legal minimum marriage age. In the United States, for instance, most states set 18 as this minimum. But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/10/why-does-the-united-states-still-let-12-year-old-girls-get-married/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.c6aa89198c9b">every US state allows for children younger than 18 to marry</a>, typically with parental consent or judicial approval, under specific circumstances. </p>
<p>In as many as 27 states, laws do not specify an age below which a child cannot marry under any circumstances. But transparent birth and marriage registration systems, gender-inclusive education, a democratic culture and child rights protection agencies at the local level <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/politics/child-marriage-law-and-freedom-choice-134188">ensure that the legal right to marry</a> before 18 is not abused. These institutional provisions are absent in Bangladesh. </p>
<p>In contrast to high-income countries, marriage decisions in Bangladesh take place in <a href="http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/3/commentary/child-marriage-law-and-freedom-choice-bangladesh.html">conditions of extreme poverty and illiteracy</a>. So legal provisions for marriage under the age of 18 risks the possibility of increasing child marriage.</p>
<p>Among developing countries with a high prevalence of child marriage, Bangladesh’s relatively superior rank in several other gender indicators lends it a unique advantage in the battle against the practice. It is much better placed than others to gain from primary prevention strategies that include renegotiating marriage age laws and ensuring that they are uniform across communities, rather than focusing on “marriage busting” approaches. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/12/bangladesh-dont-lower-marriage-age">controversy</a> about <a href="http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/law-rights/2017/02/27/child-marriage-bill-passed/">the bill</a> risks drawing policy attention away from primary prevention strategies and harming the fight against child marriage in the country. </p>
<p><strong>Acknowledgement:</strong> <em>Sajeda Amin, Senior Associate at Population Council, New York, and Sara Hossain, Honorary Executive Director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>M Niaz Asadullah has received funding from the Australian Development Research Awards (ADRA) Scheme for a recently concluded project on women's education and life choices in rural Bangladesh.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zaki Wahhaj has received funding from the Australian Development Research Awards Scheme for a recently concluded project on women's education and life choices in rural Bangladesh.</span></em></p>Bangladesh is a global poster child when it comes to improving women’s status in the developing and the Muslim worlds. But a recent amendment to the country’s marriage law threatens its progress.M Niaz Asadullah, Professor of Development Economics, University of MalayaZaki Wahhaj, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.