Asia Child Marriage Initiative: Summary of Research in ... - ICRW

Findings indicate that children who participated in BLOP or children’s club activities had many positive
experiences to relate and emphasised that the exposure helped them to better express themselves and
enhanced their self-confidence.
Plan India
In Rajasthan, a programme supported by Plan organises residential education camps for girls who drop
out of school or have never enrolled. These camps are bridging programmes that help participants enrol
in school after the completion of the programme. The specific impact of the camps on child marriage was
difficult to isolate since the central focus of the programme was directed towards promoting education and
raising awareness of its benefits. However, the experiences of some girls who had attended the residential
camps do support the evidence that increased education of girls results in delaying the age at marriage by
a few years, if not ending the practice of child marriage.
Successful strategies adopted by Plan
This section discusses the successful strategies adopted by Plan in the three COs to delay the marriage of
children and prevent early marriages of girls. Six strategies are discussed here.
Children’s organisations
Promoting and providing sustained support to children’s organisations is a successful strategy for
ensuring children’s participation and ownership in platforms for creating awareness about the negative
consequences of child marriage. Plan programmes in the three countries are already doing this with
different degrees of intensity. Participation in these organisations has built children’s capacities and
expanded their worldviews.
There is evidence that participation in these organisations has provided children with the knowledge and
skills to negotiate with adults and prevent their own early marriage. Strengthening these organisations can
enhance their potential as pressure groups in the community to support change in social norms regarding
the age at which marriage is arranged or entered into.
Partnering with government and civil society
Partnerships between civil society organisations and government for the prevention of child marriage seem
to yield positive results. The scale of government programmes, combined with community outreach of civil
society organisations, ensures that the respective strengths of the two sectors are synergised for positive
results. For example, Plan Bangladesh’s work with the Union Parishads (local governments) to declare
child-marriage-free Unions is effective in giving visibility to the issue and raising awareness.
Engaging with community leaders
Ending child marriage requires a change in social norms and influential persons in the community such as
religious leaders and teachers play strong roles in upholding or challenging the status quo. Plan engages with
these persons and invites their participation in community events. Messages coming from these leaders around
the value of girls’ education or the need to stop dowry practices can be very effective in influencing public
opinion. Plan’s CCCD approach recognises the value of this engagement with community leaders. Further
expanding this approach will strengthen progress towards the end of child marriage.
Raising awareness about child marriage as a violation of child rights
All country programmes and national governments are actively raising awareness about the negative
consequences of child marriage and there is fairly widespread awareness about the illegality of marriage
before the age of 18. Plan’s unique contribution is the linkage of child marriage to the violation of child
rights. Parents, children and government officers who had been exposed to Plan’s programmes had
increased awareness about child rights and identified child marriage as a rights violation.
26 Child Marriage in Bangladesh, India and Nepal