Advocating at CSW68 to end child marriage: Wrap-up

Above photo from left to right: Roberto Baeza, The Hunger Project – Mexico; Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch; Georgiana Epure, Girls Not Brides; Melissa Kubvoruno, Pan-African Alliance to End Child Marriage; Naomi Nyamweya, Malala Fund; Dr. Faith Mwangi-Powell, Girls Not Brides.
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The 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women CSW68 (11-22 March 2024, NYC) concluded with the adoption of the Agreed Conclusions – the politically-negotiated outcome document, which this year focused on accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective. Girls Not Brides, alongside member organisations and partners, engaged with key states in the associated processes to influence the Agreed Conclusions and drive forward advocacy to end child, early and forced marriage, as per our recommendations.

During the UN negotiations on the adoption of the CSW68 Agreed Conclusions, which sets the standards for action by states in relation to the priority theme, Girls Not Brides delivered an in-person oral intervention, calling on states to address the root causes of child, early and forced marriages and unions (CEFMU), including by ensuring girls’ access to 12 years of gender-transformative education; increasing financing for public services, such as education and health; reducing and redistributing girls’ and women’s unpaid care work; removing gender-discriminatory laws; providing support for ever married girls; developing progressive global financial frameworks prioritizing poverty eradication and gender equity; and improving data collection.

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Our Senior Regional Engagement and Advocacy Officer, Fatou delivered a powerful intervention at the @UN_Women Commission on the Status of Women on behalf of Girls Not Brides, highlighting the urgent need to #EndChildMarriage worldwide. 👇 pic.twitter.com/lvPigOJSmU

— Girls Not Brides (@GirlsNotBrides) March 21, 2024

The Agreed Conclusions urge states and others to take action on all forms of violence against women and girls, including child, early and forced marriage. Several of our recommendations are reflected in the final text, including action on the right to quality education including supporting access to menstrual hygiene; action to address the disproportionate impact of unpaid care work on girls and women; the collection of disaggregated data on multidimensional poverty; and, notably, gender-responsive budgeting, including by improving tax systems. However, whilst the Agreed Conclusions urge for improved international tax cooperation towards eradicating poverty, they fall short of including reference to the call for a UN-led Tax Convention. The need to ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and the provision of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), which are crucial for addressing CEFMU, is also notably missing from the text. The Agreed Conclusions also do not refer to informal unions, which constitute de facto marriages and therefore need to be equally addressed.

What events did we hold at CSW68 on ending child marriage?

Girls Not Brides organised two advocacy events to elevate our recommendations for the CSW Agreed Conclusions and prepare the ground for key upcoming advocacy windows, such as ICPD30, the UN General Assembly biennial resolution on child, early, and forced marriage, the Summit of the Future, and the Global Ministerial Conference on Violence against Children. We also held a donor discussion and reception on the sidelines of CSW bringing together some of the most committed funders for the ending child marriage agenda.

Addressing Poverty and Access to Education to End Child Marriage

On 12 March, Girls Not Brides co-hosted a parallel event on ‘Addressing Poverty and Access to Education to End Child Marriage’ alongside the Pan-African Alliance on Ending Child Marriage (PAAECM), The Hunger Project, and Human Rights Watch. The focus of the event drew multiple links with the CSW68 priority theme, identifying child marriage both as a driver and consequence of poverty, perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes and denying girls their rights to education, health, and autonomy.

The panel explored how the feminisation of poverty around the world reflects a structural and global problem driving CEFMU. Roberto Baeza, Advocacy and Strategy Director at The Hunger Project – Mexico, highlighted this issue in the context of Latin America. He underlined that girls and adolescents, especially in rural and indigenous contexts, face multiple violations of their human rights, including in areas such as poverty, autonomy and unpaid care work. Roberto highlighted the need for dialogue with local governments and new forms of collaboration to address these challenges and to achieve the redistribution of power.

Discussions further highlighted the importance of education and keeping girls in school as a key method of preventing child marriage. Jo Becker, Children’s Rights Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, highlighted the barriers faced particularly by girls when schooling is not free, including care burdens and gender stereotypes which prioritise educating boys over girls. She shared the call for a new legally-binding international standard regarding the right to education – specifically, for the adoption of an Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child guaranteeing access to a minimum of one year of free pre-primary education and free secondary education. Jo said:

“We think that new international law can really accelerate progress. It can prompt governments to reevaluate their laws and their policies, and really expand them to benefit all children. We know that this will also reduce poverty, it will reduce inequalities, it will contribute to more inclusive and more sustainable societies, and help children, especially girls, thrive in today’s world.”

Jo Becker, Children’s Rights Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch

Continuing the thread of the conversation, Melissa Kubvoruno from the PAAECM explained how providing economic support to girls in rural African communities serves to increase girls’ access to education, including the re-entry of pregnant girls into school. She also highlighted the importance of working with traditional leaders to act as champions by introducing by-laws on ending child marriage, including making it mandatory for parents to enrol their children in school, as well as African CSOs’ asks for the African Union Year of Education. Melissa concluded:

“We as girls and young women of Africa and of the world come in all diversities: young mothers, girls in child marriage, girls living in rural areas, girls in and out of school. We are saying we are tired of being statistics – we want to be recognised as people with voices, dreams and as people who can change the future.”

Melissa Kubvoruno, Pan-African Alliance to End Child Marriage

Naomi Nyamweya, Research and Policy Manager at Malala Fund spoke about the need for reforming the global financial system so that states can redirect and increase revenue to adequately finance public services such as education. Naomi further highlighted the challenges around meeting demand for education, with states lacking capacity to put every girl in school, because of insufficient schools. Solutions included tax reform (including through a UN-led Tax Convention), debt resolution and reforming global economic governance so that lower-income countries have a fairer say in how international financing institutions are run.

In concluding the discussion, Girls Not Brides CEO, Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, highlighted additional barriers to education faced by girls, including conflict, unpaid care work and lack of access to period products. She further underlined the need for education to be gender-transformative in order to produce a much-needed shift in gender norms that underpin child marriage and other harmful practices.

Ending Child Marriage: A Key Path Towards Gender Equality

On 13 March, Girls Not Brides co-hosted the side event ‘Ending Child Marriage: A Key Path Towards Gender Equality’ alongside the Governments of Canada, Malawi, Sweden and the United Kingdom and Plan International. The event focused on best practices to advance the ending child marriage agenda at the national level and globally.

First panel

Our first panel, moderated by Nankali Maksud, Coordinator of the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage, discussed the importance of multisectoral action - with a focus on education, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and justice, and multilevel engagement (from individuals to communities to national efforts) in advancing the ending child marriage agenda.

Kicking off the discussion, H.E. Jean Sendeza, Malawi’s Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, updated on the renewed commitment made in November 2023 by President Lazarus Chakwera to end child marriage in Malawi. Whilst Malawi has experienced a 5 percentage point reduction in child marriage during the implementation of the last National Strategy to End Child Marriage, the Minister acknowledged that more coordinated action is needed to accelerate substantial progress. She outlined the steps being taken to domesticate the SADC Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage and Protecting Children Already in Marriage and to provide financial backing to Malawi’s upcoming new National Strategy to End Child Marriage, which is currently being finalised.

Representatives from the Department of Social Development in South Africa further intervened from the floor to share on projects to support comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in schools in South Africa and to drive girls’ agency to tackle child marriage in their communities. These projects serve to support the provisions of South Africa’s upcoming new Marriage Bill, which seeks to ban child marriage in line with international standards. H.E. Lindiwe Zulu, Minister of Social Development in South Africa, also took the floor to further highlight the issue of girls and women in informal unions, who have no recourse to institutional support and therefore face increased vulnerability.

Angela Nguku, Executive Director of White Ribbon Alliance in Kenya, highlighted child marriage as a violation of SRHR that has a hugely detrimental impact on the health and well-being of girls and young women, as well as on that of their children. With 2024 marking the 30-year anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), Angela reflected on the lack of progress that has been made on ensuring girls’ and adolescent girls’ access to SRHR since ICPD+25. She noted the importance of empowering girls and women to demand action and called on governments to take a holistic approach that recognises girls’ and women’s intersectional needs.

Wrapping up the first panel, Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell highlighted the need for change led by people in their local communities, because they are the ones who are best-placed to know and understand their own needs. She shared an example of Girls Not Brides’ Education Out Loud-funded project in West Africa, which is seeing girls demanding what they need. Addressing the Minister of Malawi, Faith called on President Chakwera to champion ending child marriage and to encourage other African Union leaders in turn to do the same.

Second panel

The second panel, moderated by Georgiana Epure, Girls Not Brides’ Global Advocacy and Campaigns Interim Manager, delved into advancing SDG5.3 and addressing child marriage at the international level. Speakers further addressed the current era of ‘rollback’ on girls’ and women’s rights, which is hindering efforts to advance the ending child marriage agenda within multilateral and state institutions.

Speaking on this issue, Béatrice Maillé, Minister-Counsellor and Legal Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN called for more coordinated and collaborative efforts to overcome the challenges posed by the pushback on girls’ and women’s human rights. She further emphasised the importance of ensuring accountability and of holistic approaches to addressing child marriage, including on education, health and justice. Additionally, she also highlighted Canada’s role in co-leading the UN General Assembly Resolution on child, early and forced marriage alongside Zambia. The Resolution, which will be adopted this year, plays a crucial role in maintaining a strong normative framework for ending CEFMU.

Dr. Faith Mwangi-Powell noted the importance of monitoring other global trends such as climate change, which have a big impact on driving child marriage and increasing girls’ vulnerabilities, as part of taking a multilevel approach to ending child marriage.

Kathleen Sherwin, Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer at Plan International, built on this point in terms of the need to ensure strategies to end child marriage are multisectoral and are rooted in gender equality, education and addressing harmful gender norms. She called on governments to work more effectively on this issue by investing in better disaggregated data, birth and marriage registrations, and in the implementation of laws backed by national budgets.

Speaking from the perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean, Mabel Bianco, President of Fundación Para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM) in Argentina, drew attention to the issue of informal unions and high levels of adolescent pregnancy in places like Argentina. In particular, she highlighted the strong pushback on CSE in schools from anti-rights groups and the need to hold governments to account to address these issues.

Finally, Petra Tötterman Andorff, Secretary General of Kvinna till Kvinna in Sweden, spoke on the correlation between high child marriage prevalence and increased conflicts and conflict-related sexual violence. She highlighted how many girls affected by conflict are married off as a way to settle debts, or to protect the family’s honour due to fear that their daughters will be subjected to sexual violence. She called for long-term, stable, flexible funding for women’s rights organisations working to support girls in these contexts.

During the Q&A, the President of the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou, highlighted that the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) contains two provisions on forced marriage, including the criminalisation of forced marriage of a child and the duty to ensure that marriages concluded under force may be dissolved. She further noted that the Convention is open to ratification by any state, regardless of whether they are a member of the Council of Europe.

Precious Phiri, a youth advocate from Zimbabwe, concluded the discussions with a personal account of her friend whose father sought a dowry to pay off debts by selling his daughter into marriage. She shared how, through their school club, she and her peers helped to oppose this and to hold the father accountable. Precious therefore concluded with a message on the importance of educating parents on their responsibilities and of recognising girls’ rights.

A Conversation around Strategy and Sustainability of Funding for the Ending Child Marriage Movement

Girls Not Brides joined forces with Girls First Fund and VOW for Girls to bring together funders to discuss how best to sustain work to end CEFMU. This event served to highlight the pivotal role of each organisation in the eco-system to end child marriage. We heard a rich array of perspectives from donors about their funding journeys and the challenges they face in a shifting landscape, both from long-term funders and those who are growing their presence in the space.

The discussions highlighted the need for long-term, flexible funding which places trust in locally-led organisations and movements, as well as for collaboration between donors, intermediaries and locally-led organisations, in order to help the ending child marriage “eco-system” thrive by creating a shared story of success to demonstrate progress along the way.

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At #CSW68, alongside @GirlsFirstFund & @vowforgirls, we convened funders to discuss sustaining efforts to #EndChildMarriage.

Check out our 3 key takeaway⬇️ pic.twitter.com/769RCyOXWZ

— Girls Not Brides (@GirlsNotBrides) March 15, 2024

What other panels did we participate in at CSW68?

During CSW68, Girls Not Brides CEO, Dr. Faith Mwangi-Powell, also held speaking roles at other key events relating to child marriage. This included the launch of the third phase of the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to End Child Marriage, as well as the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP)’s event “In Conversation with Adolescent Girls: What it means to be girls’ ally on the global stage”.

#CSW68
👏Congratulations @GPChildMarriage for the launch of the Phase III of the 15-year programme (2016–2030) to contribute to SDG 5.3 to #EndChildMarriage

As our CEO @fmwangipowell rightly said: "It's everyone's job to fulfil the promise of SDG5!"
And we need to do it faster! pic.twitter.com/d8s53M2BkH

— Girls Not Brides (@GirlsNotBrides) March 15, 2024

Jenipher Mkandawire, co-chair of Girls Not Brides Malawi, also joined the panel of an event co-hosted by ActionAid International Kenya and The Girl Generation on “Empowering Voices: Girl-Led Approaches to End FGM/C”. In her intervention, Jenipher highlighted the importance of taking a girl-centred approach to facilitate girls’ full potential to create change in their communities.