Coping with Compound Crises: What Does This Mean for Child Marriage Interventions?

On the World Day of Social Justice (20th February), we reflect on how combining environmental sustainability with social justice can help reduce poverty and inequality while increasing opportunities for all. l. This means intentionally working with those who are experiencing the greatest insecurity – including adolescent girls affected by compound crises – to promote their rights and gender equality within a more equitable, sustainable global system.

Climate, conflict and epidemic shocks are threatening decades of progress in ending child marriage around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic alone is predicted to push 10 million more girls into early marriage by 2030.^[1] For every tenfold increase in conflict-related fatalities, child marriage increases by 10% and for every 10% change in rainfall due to climate change, child marriage increases by 1%.^[2] In states considered fragile, child marriage prevalence is almost double the global average.^[3] Out of the ten countries with the highest child marriage prevalence, nine experience significant fragility.^[4]

This article by Accelerate Hub, with Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, sets out some of the key challenges faced by policymakers working on child marriage against this backdrop of “compound crises” – and identifies where new evidence-based responses are needed.

Global challenges and statistics

Globally, an estimated 640 million girls and women alive today were married before age 18, affecting 12 million girls per year.^[5] While that prevalence has declined in some contexts, including in India and Ethiopia, overall child marriage reduction would have to be 20 times faster to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of ending child marriage by 2030.^[6] The situation is particularly acute across West, Central, East and Southern Africa.

According to UNICEF, a growing share of child marriages will take place in West, Central, East and Southern Africa, with the number of girls married before 18 likely to exceed 4 million in the region by 2030 – with disproportionately higher risks in countries experiencing compound shocks. This would represent 41% of married girls in the world, a sharp increase from 15% of marriages globally 25 years ago. In line with UNICEF’s findings, analysis conducted by Girls Not Brides found that compound crises exacerbate existing drivers of child marriage, which is often used – by girls and their families – as a short-term coping mechanism to reduce the pressure on limited household resources, and to gain financial and physical security^[7].

There is a growing evidence base which suggests that girls who marry before age 18 are more likely to leave school early and experience an increased risk of early pregnancy, putting their health and lives – and those of their children – at risk. Child marriage also has negative impacts on girls’ and young women’s mental health and limits their livelihood opportunities. Responding to the needs of ever-married girls requires a concerted effort to support those who are most marginalised, including adolescents who are pregnant and/or parenting.^[8] Some of these effects are irreversible and have perpetuated a cycle of marginalisation, discrimination and poverty.

Learning from the evidence – what we know works to prevent and respond to child marriage in humanitarian settings.^[9]

Addressing barriers to education for girls in humanitarian settings can be highly protective against the heightened risk of child marriage, especially for displaced girls and refugees. Providing girls and their caregivers with cash assistance to overcome some of these barriers is an evidence-based solution for promoting girls’ continued education in these settings ^[10] Combining empowerment-based approaches, including tackling harmful norms along with efforts to address insecurity, poverty and gender-based violence, are needed.^[11]

Safe spaces play a key role in girls’ protection. Girls often describe them as the only spaces where they feel safe and can access the care and critical services they need, such as sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and psychosocial services. Safe spaces programming may be more effective when paired with transformative interventions at the family and community level, such as vocational training, economic empowerment education, and age-appropriate income-generating opportunities.^[12]

Adolescent-friendly service provision is critical – including through schools, clinics, social assistance and humanitarian intervention. There is growing evidence of promising practice for delivering flexible, sexual and reproductive health services for adolescent girls in humanitarian settings^[13] Mainstreaming child marriage interventions within humanitarian programming to ensure interventions prevent and respond to child marriage is critical.

Promising interventions: East and Southern Africa

The Accelerate Research Project, led by the Universities of Oxford and Cape Town, has identified a range of “development accelerators” – simple interventions which can achieve multiple development goals for adolescent girls, including child marriage prevention. The project has identified interventions that can be delivered at scale and represent value-for-money investments.^[14]

Through the analysis of Violence Against Children (VACS) data, the Accelerate Research Project has identified what interventions can build resilience. Research in Kenya, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Namibia^[15] demonstrates that a combination of positive gender norms, food security, and positive parenting accelerators were all associated with multiple improved outcomes, including child marriage, other dimensions and experiences of violence and sexual and reproductive health.

In Zimbabwe, girls who experienced the three accelerator provisions of positive gender norms, food security and positive parenting were 8.8 % likely to marry before the age of 18 compared to 18.1% for girls who did not receive all three accelerators – in other words, the risk was more than halved. Similarly in Namibia, the predicted probability of an adolescent girl being married before age 18 was 3% with no accelerator provisions compared to 0.1% (a 97% reduction) when an adolescent received all three accelerators.

In Ethiopia, a recent secondary analysis from Young Lives data suggests that community health workers can be considered as development accelerators.^[16] In this context, household visits from health extension workers were associated with a 70% reduction in the probability of child marriage, a 75% reduction in the probability of adolescent pregnancy, and a 63% increase in the probability of girls’ school enrolment. These findings, along with other research by UNICEF and the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE), suggest these effects may be a result of health extension workers talking to families about the risks of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, and the benefits of girls' education. Health extension workers can also monitor family preparations for marriage and intervene when a girl is under the legal age of 18.^[17]

In South Africa, we see how the COVID-19 pandemic increased rates of pregnancy and school dropout. Approximately 25% of girls who were attending school when they became pregnant discontinued their education, and many of them permanently left school.^[18] Jochim’s evidence highlights several accelerators that can support adolescent mothers to return to school, including formal childcare, youth-friendly health provisions and programmes to boost self-confidence, which can increase school enrolment during pregnancy. Ensuring that girls’ education is not disrupted is a direct way to improve the educational and health goals of adolescent mothers, as well as reducing a key driver of child marriage.

Building evidence for action

Child marriage remains under-recognised in humanitarian planning and financing and is generally not seen as a major concern by humanitarian actors outside of the protection sector ^[19]. In a meeting organised by Girls Not Brides under the Africa Action to Group to End Child Marriage (AAGECM) platform, there was a call for greater awareness of the complexities around the practice, including interventions needed in humanitarian contexts.

Recent evidence and systematic reviews highlight persisting gaps across intervention evidence to prevent child marriage in conflict and crisis-affected populations, including a widespread lack of evidence for interventions with ever-married girls in all contexts.^[20] Research from GAGE also found that married girls are often very isolated, experiencing emotional distress, including by the demands of marriage and motherhood. Rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) are very high, and access to support is very limited in crisis-affected settings.^[21]

More evidence is needed on what gender-transformative programming in humanitarian settings could look like, including ensuring deliberate inclusion of girls who are living with disabilities, displaced, married, mothers, LGBTQIA+, and those who face other/multiple forms of marginalisation in different geographies^[22]. Far greater meaningful engagement with and amplification of frontline organisations, including women’s rights organisations and women-led organisations, is needed to build local ownership and create interventions that are responsive to the needs and priorities of all girls.^[23]

Future areas for action

The increasing frequency of conflict, climate shocks and disease outbreaks means business as usual is not enough. Development, humanitarian and anticipatory response frameworks need to be more age-sensitive and gender-transformative. Interventions need to be multisectoral, recognising the catalytic potential of engaging in key sectors – like education – to prevent and respond to child marriage in conflict- and crisis-affected settings.

For example, how can we develop more gender-responsive early warning systems to better anticipate and respond to the risks of child marriage? Could the onset of drought trigger social protection interventions for girls in the poorest and most at-risk households to prevent early school leaving and child marriage? How can humanitarian interventions prevent and respond to the risk of sexual abuse, including mainstreaming GBV screening and psychosocial support into social assistance responses?

While we seek to understand, respond to and prevent child marriage, it is important to ensure responses are informed by the perspectives of girls and young women themselves. In line with commitments to localisation and moves to decolonise development assistance, it is essential adolescent girls are meaningfully involved in research and that their leadership is recognised and supported. Through creating platforms for more equitable and inclusive research and learning, we can better identify relevant policies and programmes to tackle these growing global challenges and ultimately accelerate progress towards an end to child marriage.

This article is a collaboration between Girls Not Brides, the University of Oxford and University of Cape town; co-authored by:

• Jean Casey, Mundia Situmbeko and Emma Sadd (Girls Not Brides);
• Mona Ibrahim, Jason Chau, Bothaina Eltigani (University of Oxford);
• and Silinganiswe Dzumbunu and Rachel Yates (University of Cape Town).