brac's experience in ending child marriage

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BRAC’s Experience in Ending Child Marriage

Presented by

Sheepa Hafiza

Director, Gender Justice and Diversity and Migration Programme, BRAC

Convener, Girls Not Brides Bangladesh Alliance - GNBBA

Dhaka, 7 October 2015


Child Marriage : where we are in Bangladesh

Highest rate of child marriage in South Asia (66%) and fourth position in

world.

39% of Bangladeshi girls are married before 15 and 74% before 18.

(http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures)

29% of adolescent girls (aged 15-19) are currently married (icddr,b and

Plan International 2013 )

Occurs 80% in poor families and 53% in solvent families (ibid)

81 % of marriages are registered. (ibid)

Among this, 45 % are held in home, 14 % in office of the marriage

registrars and 2 % in other cases. (ibid)

http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures


Reasons behind child marriage Based on the findings of BRAC district level workshop with Marriage registrars & religious leaders

Child Marriage

Income

Poverty

Social

Insecurity

Lack of Proper implementatio

n and monitoring of

existing policies & laws

Lack of awareness

among parents on harmful

effect on their girls with CM

Lack of accountability of marriage registrars

Local power structure & dynamics

Easy access of false age certificate


Consequences of child marriage

Education

• 76 % girls (80 % in rural areas and 60 % in urban ) drop out from school at secondary level (icddr’band Plan International 2013)

Health &

Nutrition

• 20 % girls become mother before 15

• 45 % low weight and stunted children are born

• 5 % of the mothers who are aged below 18, face risk of death during child birth.(UNFPA 2013)

Poverty

• Child brides are deprived of the opportunity to acquire skills that will enable them to uplift them and their families from poverty (ICRW 2011)

Domestic violence

• Girls/wife murdered by domestic violence, 70 % are aged between 13 to 18 year (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2013)


Addressing child marriage issues in Bangladesh

• Recently programmes are more focusing to address issues related to Child & Forced

Marriage

• Programmes on Child Marriage need to be addressed by holistic approach focusing on

changing gender norms, social expectations and perspectives towards girls

• Not Possible

– to end CFM without efforts of agency building of girls

– And without building collective and holistic movement against it


WHO TO BE INVOLVED?

WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?

• Adolescent- married and in risk of early marriage (aged 10 to 18)

• Youth (aged 15 to 24 )

• Parents

• Teachers

• Community people- friends & relatives

• Marriage registrars & religious leaders

• Local government

• Law enforcing agency

• Policy makers


BRAC mechanism for Transforming inequitable structures and exploitative relations

of power

Opportunities for economic, social and political participation

Decentralization of resources

Accountability and transparency

Transformation of inequitable structures and

exploitative relations of power

Rights and choices

Mobilization and voice

Capabilities, assets, resources

Empowerment

Opportunity

structures

Informal

Institutions“Invisible power”

-Family,

community

- Culture,

traditions

- Social

hierarchies

Formal

Institutions“Visible power”

- Laws and rules

- State agencies,

civil society

organizations

- Markets

- Political parties


GQAL

BRAC initiative to address CFM

BRAC’s platforms for

reaching 87,76,572

youth (out of 57 million)

Space, mobility & skill building for

income generation

Access to information and

services

Solidarity, connection and

platform

Changing gender norms & DVAW free

life

Leadership & confidence

building1,77,910 student

MEJNIN

ADP

2,73,367

student

STAR

SRHR

BRAC Maya

GNBBA50,018 youth

GQAL (390,000 HH)

Gonokendra


WHY includes Youth?

• To create responsible future citizens who will be sensitive towards equal rights of women and men

• Youth are especially expected to protest (in public places) sexual harassment against women, consider child marriage and other forms of violence against women and girls as a crime

HOW they work?

• Work ascommunityvolunteers

• work as changeagents in themind-set of theirpeers, act on anyincidences oftheirsurroundingscollectively,response withother GQALplatforms

• Take proactive initiative in their locality to prevent Child Marriage

WHAT are the key interventions?

• Raising awareness through regular forums, video show, youth gathering

• Formation of youth association networks and End Violence Against Women Committee (EVAWC)

• Sharing opinions with marriage registrars, religious leaders , government officials, etc.

• Advocacy initiatives

HOW many are the impact Youth?

• Total 7700 Youthare working in 40unions (sub-subdistrict) of eightdistricts

• Among them3689 are Femaleand 4011 areMale

• A number of36354 femaleand 28324 malestudents areintervened byGQAL especiallyfor buildingthemselvesprotectiveagainst sexualharassment

Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) Programme


RESULT 18% (68,250) of women reported (M&E Findings, 2015) child marriage at their communities which was 73.% at baseline (2012)

Knowledge level of girls and boys about sexual harassment based on selected index increased by 65% and 69% consequently (M&E Findings, 2015)

769 (78%) child marriage stopped and socially reintegrated out of 983 reported cases (Field Registers of 2013-2014)

90% (3, 50, 337) of women responded about their dream regarding daughters’ future as being a doctor/engineer/service holder and 14% (54, 990) women responded about their wish regarding daughters’ future as home makers (M&E Findings, 2015)

A total of 5 Union declared by GoB rep as completely child marriage free Union out of 40 (Field Reports) and also 371 spots of 770 declared as child marriage free

2,61,300 (67%) are able to enjoy male partners changed (favorable) gender roles at household level (M&E Findings, 2015)

• Customised model of GQAL has been piloted with the Manosi intervention of MNCH

programme (currently works with 6.9 million urban slum dwellers of nine city corporations)

• Work in progress to integrate with Micro Finance Programme

•,


Policy Advocacy &

Networking

Prevention,

Protection,

Mobilization &

Psychosocial

councelling

Awareness,

Leadership,

conscientization

& Psychosocial

cancelling

School (120,000

students)

Community/

neighbourhoods(70,000 SWG, CWG,

teacher, parents,)

District and National level (Police, Administration, Media, Districts

Network and Alliance, BRAC

Programmes)

MEJNIN

Safe Citizenship for GirlsCombating SH at public places


Key Findings of MEJNIN Pilot Evaluation

Period 2010-2011

• Significant change in knowledge level of the

respondents/girls in treatment areas

compared to the control areas (Treatment

82% Control: 48%)

• Attitude level changed compared to the

control areas. Are in Treatment 38% & in

Control 28%)

• Reporting of any kind of sexual harassment

by the respondents in treatment areas was

higher compared to the control areas

(Treatment 41%, Control 25%)

• Drop-out of girl student decreased (5% in

2010 and 2% in 2014)

Period Sep. 2013 – June 2015

• 23% girls reported to their parents

about sexual harassment incidents

• 57% girls students are able to resist,

protest sexual harassment in their

lives.

• 69% teachers, parents and CWG

member have become attentive/ alart

of any incidence of sexual

harassment

• School drop out of girls reduced to

2% from 5% among 348 schools

from 2010 -2014. (BRAC Survey)


MEJNIN- Lessons Learnt

1. Individual and group social communication collectively can break Culture

of Silence and advance inter-generational relationship

2. Neighborhood Connectivity, Solidarity and Social Networks helps to end

SH & FCM,

3. However, intra-family psychosocial support is a must for social

reintegration of survivors

4. Young people have the HIGHEST potential agencies for change

5. Include SRHR knowledge building in ending VAWC

6. Proactive Community Networks plays innovative and vital role to include

un-approachable population, e.g power players, politicians

7. Following MEJNIN model dignified access to Citizens Rights of women

and girls can be successfully and cost effectively scaled up to areas such

as, transport, Cyber net, access to public places - Hospitals, Markets, Play

Grounds, etc. in any part of the world

SHafiza-MEJNIN-BRAC14


BRAC Maya to Ensure Access to Information for

Gender Justice

Key features

• Based on a website

(www.maya.com.bd) and mobile app

named ‘Maya Apa’

• Accessible from computer, android

phone and feature phone

• Anonymous and provides pertinent

answers to questions received on

VAW, SRHR specially early pregnancy

within 48 hours

• Referral service for stopping child

marriage

• Total 24k question received

• Total 7.1 million women and girls

reached for accessing the BRAC

Maya information servicesMaya Apa – mobile app

http://www.maya.com.bd/


Networking and platform building

Secretariat of Girls Not Brides Bangladesh Alliance

Major highlights

• Advocacy letter on SDG to honorable Prime Minister, women affairs Minister,

health minister, education minister and UN permanent representative to

Bangladesh government

• Initiate the movement on protesting Govt.’s proposal of lowering the minimum

age of marriage collectively through press conference, statement, human

chain, seminar etc

• Recent high level lobby meeting with Finance Minister

• National level sharing meeting with govt., marriage registrars, CSOs, youth

• National level consultation on draft Child Marriage Restraint Act ,2014 and

compiling recommendations

• Lobby with global level, i.e. issuing open letter from former UN Secretary

General Kofi Annan on behalf of GNB elder’s group to influence Bangladesh

government not to lower the minimum age of marriage


Continue…

• Global advocacy by commenting on proposed SDG to support

retaining the specific target on CEFM under the goal 5

• Review of National Action Plan on Child Marriage

• Contributing the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights

(OHCHR) on its report in the areas of prevalence, impact, steps taken

and effective strategy to combat child marriage

• organizing upcoming Bangladesh Girl Summit 2015 in

partnership with the GNBBA, GoB, DFID, DFAT and UNICEF


Request from Government

• Successful example: Kurigram

Deputy Commissioner requests

BRAC to organize workshop with

local marriage registrars to

sensitize on preventing child

marriage


It is possible to end

child marriage by one

generation with the

support of laws,

proper implementation

of laws, collective

efforts and political will


Thank you

brac's experience in ending child marriage

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