Presentation: Why we should be prioritising child marriage and how to do it?

Presentation at the Global Protection Forum Innovation Corner by Plan International and Save the Children: In the Hour of Need: Why we should be prioritising child marriage and how to do it?

This session included an overview of why child marriage is a serious protection concern that demands action from across the humanitarian response. We have a responsibility to support and protect girls and their families, including from resorting to extreme coping mechanisms in reaction to worsening hardship brought on from crisis and displacement. Presentations form Girls Not Brides gave an overview behind current evidence on interventions  to prevent and respond to child marriage in humanitarian programme. Plan International shared common challenges across crises in the uptake of actions to tackle the issue. UNHCR explained how child marriage creates additional complications in the documentation, refugee processing and resettle for married children. And finally IRC and Save the Children gave grounded experiences when working on child marriage prevention in Yemen, and the importance of working with married girls from Sierra Leone. The group concluded on several actions we can all do to better prioritise and response to the issue in humanitarian action:

1. Understand the context and needs: Strengthen analysis gender analyses, HNOs, HRPs and strategies to capture child marriage as a serious protection concern
2. Target ever married girls & young mothers: Don’t only work on the prevention of child marriage. Make sure you adapt your programme for ever married girls and young mothers to access and benefit
3. Work with local actors: Link and strengthen the capacity of local actors, WLOs and    girl-led groups who can continue to tackle child marriage across the triple nexus
4. Involve the community: Involve the community, including girls, in everything you do. They are the change makers and know how to influence their community
5. Document and share: Evaluate, document and share your work!!

For more information, please contact

• Clare Lofthouse, Technical Advisor on Child Marriage,  [email protected] Plan International
• Rahina Hussaini, Global Senior Advisor CEFMU Prevention and Response, [email protected] Save the Children

More resources:

• Our future, Our voices, Understanding risks and adaptive capacities to prevent and respond to child marriage in 2 humanitarian settings, Plan International
• GLOBAL POLICY ON CHILD, EARLY AND FORCED MARRIAGES AND UNIONS, Plan International  
• CRANK Research Spotlight: Addressing child marriage and supporting married girls in conflict- and crisis-affected settings, Girls Not Brides
• CRANK Evidence Review Child marriage interventions and research from 2020 to 2022, Girls Not Brides
• Girl Shine Early Marriage Curriculum for Adolescent Girls (Available in English, French, Arabic) (also attached)
• Girl Shine Early Marriage Curriculum for Caregivers (Available in English, French, Arabic)   (also attached)
• Online Girl Shine Training (Available in English, French, Arabic) (also attached)

• Principle of supporting girls-led groups
• Girl-Led Movement Building - Save the Children’s Resource Centre
• Five Ways to Support Girl-Led Movements | Save the Children’s Resource Centre
• Global Girlhood Report 2022: Girls on the frontline | Save the Children’s Resource Centre
• Crank-research-spotlight-reaching-the-most-marginalised-girls 2023 Girls Not Brides
• Conflict-related-sexual-violence-child-marriage 2023 Girls Not Brides
• Child-marriage-and-humanitarian-contexts 2020, Girls Not Brides