Girls not Brides: Addressing Child Marriage in eastern Chad

Philadelphia, 13 July 2012

Henri Nzeyimana

Course on Social Norms and Social Change

Introduction• 57 % of total population (over 11 million) are

children under 18

• Focus on child marriage as a form of gender based violence

• Child marriage –devastating impact on health, education, freedom of choice and free consent

• Legal discrepancies on child marriage –discrimination on minimum age for marriage : law of 1958 (15/18), draft family code (17/18); 1967 penal code only criminalizes customary marriage below 13 2

Introduction

• ⅔ of minors are forced to marry before the age of 18

• 50% of women aged 25-49 have entered a union at 15.9 years.

• 71% of women are married before the age of 18 (65% in urban areas and 74% in rural areas).

• 42% of young women have already had a child or are pregnant for the first time when they turn 17 -DHS 2004

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Social Norms and Child MarriageBeliefs•Fear to lose virginity

•To have many children

•Faithful to husbands

•Family ties

Attitudes•People should marry chaste, pure and virgin

•Girls should be married after puberty and excision

•Girls’ place should be in the home

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Social norms and Child MarriageEmpirical expectations•Parents believe others marry their children early

•Parents also married when children

•For mothers-in-law young spouses cheap manpower

Normative expectations•Parents expected to marry children early: protection of girls, family honor

• Insurance for future better life

- meet social expectations

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Current strategies

•Community mobilization: change beliefs and attitudes

•Sensitisation by core groups of youth and women- to reach more people; diffusion of information, peer education , catalysts for change

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Current strategies•Training on legal standards and law review- to support positive social norms

•Working with institutions- for sustainability

•Building protective environment- IGAs for vulnerable households

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Girls but not brides, is it possible? New strategies

Build common knowledge – community discussions to allow for dissenting voices to come out; know that others disapprove of the practice –confidence to change

Mass campaigns, open discussions and deliberations - change peoples’ beliefs and expectations; create demand for change

Late Marriage Convention –community collective pledge to abandon child marriage; re-categorization of values around positive parenting, family honour, protection

Incentives –pride, sense of belonging vs guilt, exclusion

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New strategies

Visibility and communication: use of role models (high degree nodes), testimonies by parents who married when children; use of posters, theater and documentaries

Fit for Marriage Aide Mémoire – physical, psychological, physiological characteristics for readiness to marry

Expanding social network –include religious leaders,

Addressing underlying factors and creating alternatives – role of education, life skills and free-violence schools; economic opportunities, birth registration

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Conclusion Possible but requires time and continued

commitment; accompanying measures

Urgency to protect the right to life, health, education, freedom to participate in community affairs; choice and free consent

Commitment to the MDG by 2015: eradication of poverty and hunger (MDG 1), achieving universal primary education (MDG 2), promoting gender equality (MDG 3), protecting children’s lives (MDG 4), improving health (MDG 5,6)

Thanks 4 your attention

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