Counting what matters: closing the gaps in child marriage data

I remember recently updating Girls Not Brides’ ‘Child marriage atlas’, and noticing that in countries like Brazil, Marshall Islands, Somalia, and Syria, where the data hasn’t been updated in nearly two decades, so many girls remain invisible. Behind every percentage point is a story: a girl leaving school too early, a mother navigating adulthood before her time, a community grappling with tradition and change.

Working with child marriage data isn’t just about crunching numbers or building dashboards. It’s about navigating complexity, culture, and silence. It’s about trying to make visible what is often hidden.

The gaps: what’s not working

Despite the wins, deep cracks remain in the data foundation of efforts to address child marriage:

• Fragmented systems: health, education, child protection, and justice data rarely connect, leaving us with pieces rather than the whole story.
• Limited routine tracking: few countries have mechanisms to track child marriage trends locally and in real time. We remain dependent on surveys conducted every three, five and even ten years.
• Data fatigue: in many contexts, local officers and partners are overwhelmed by multiple data requests from different donors and programmes, often using systems that don’t connect. This creates “data fatigue”, when collecting and reporting take precedence over using data for reflection, learning, and action. The result is duplication, burnout, and missed opportunities to turn data into real change.
• Donor-driven agendas: research often responds to donor priorities, not community needs. Findings don’t always circle back to the people most affected.
• Underreporting and weak capacity: frontline workers often lack the tools or training to collect and use data meaningfully. Social stigma also drives underreporting. In many communities, families hide child marriages to protect their reputation or avoid legal penalties, and girls rarely come forward because of fear, shame, or the normalisation of the practice. These silences mean that even where data exists, it often represents only a fraction of the reality – the visible tip of a much deeper issue.

These challenges are compounded by the fact that the international/global Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programme, one of the most critical sources of global child marriage data, has been temporarily halted due to funding cuts. The discontinuation of the DHS programme would impact our ability to measure real change in child marriage prevalence globally – and therefore how we track progress. This pause highlights just how fragile our data infrastructure can be when it depends too heavily on external support.

As Mousumi Sarkar, CEO and founder of Well World Solutions, reminded us during the recent Girls Not Brides webinar ‘Beyond the usual data: using alternative sources of evidence to address child marriage’, data on child marriage doesn’t only come from global surveys. In some contexts, other national or sectoral datasets can offer more recent insights if we learn to use them better:

Her reminder is timely: we cannot depend on global surveys alone. Without strengthening local and participatory systems, too many girls will remain invisible.

The call to action: what we must do

If we want a future where every girl counts, we must be bold.

To governments:

Treat child marriage data as core infrastructure for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Break the silos so that education, health, protection, and justice systems can share information safely and ethically.

This means:

• Investing in real-time, integrated systems that build on what already exists, including systems from child protection, education, and health officers, the police, judicial officers, and national statistical offices. This will ensure that information flows across sectors and child marriage doesn’t stay hidden between survey cycles every three, five, or ten years.
• Building local capacity so county and district child protection officers can use data for daily decision-making.

To funders:

Support national data systems for the long haul. Align investments with country-led priorities, and don’t just fund the surveys or dashboards: also fund the backbone/foundations that make them work.

This means:

• Investing in training, mentoring, and resourcing, not just technology.
• Funding what allows innovations to scale and last, not just pilots.

To civil society, academia, and media:

Co-create evidence that is inclusive, participatory, and accountable.

This means:

• Ensuring ethical and participatory practices by involving communities in shaping how data is defined, gathered, and used.
• Fostering cross-sector collaboration to prevent duplication, close gaps, and keep institutions accountable.

The work of Girls Not Brides member Rural Women Peace Link in Bungoma County, west Kenya, shows us what’s possible:

When Sally and her team uncovered this harmful belief fuelling child marriage, they demonstrated the power of community data. Their insights remind us that local knowledge must feed into national and global systems if we are to see the full picture.

Toward a future that counts girls in

Ultimately, child marriage data is not about numbers; it is about dignity. Data should reflect the worth of every girl, and not just the prevalence of a practice.

If we invest wisely, collaborate across sectors, and centre communities, the child marriage data landscape can become a tool, not just of measurement, but of justice.

This blog series is part of ongoing efforts by Girls Not Brides to generate reflection on, and dialogue around, child marriage data. For richer perspectives from practitioners and advocates working on the frontlines, I invite you to listen back to the full recording of our learning series webinar ‘Beyond the usual data: using alternative sources of evidence to address child marriage’. And look out for future blogs on this topic.

Data must help us imagine and build a future where every girl is counted – and where every datapoint drives action toward equality and justice.

Read part one of this blog series to find out what's going right in the child marriage data landscape.