Nepal
Girls Not Brides Nepal (Balika Dulahi Hoinan in Nepali) was created in February 2012 and became an official Girls Not Brides National Partnership in February 2015. It is made up of about 20 local, national and international organisations.
Being part of the National Partnership helps us stay updated on emerging issues, push factors and challenges of child marriage. It is very helpful to have a collective where we can discuss these challenges and come up with solutions.
Nub Raj Bhandari, Program Director, Janaki Women Awareness Society.
Successes
Girls Not Brides Nepal played a key role in the development of a national strategy to end child marriage. In particular, they helped conduct more than 60 consultations at the community, district, and national levels to better understand child marriage and what needed to be done to address it.
Drawing on the collective Theory of Change on Child Marriage, Girls Not Brides Nepal provided support and technical input into the national strategy which is spearheaded by the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare. Members gathered new evidence on the drivers of child marriage and used the data to inform the process. Girls Not Brides Nepal has also been actively involved in the drafting of the strategy’s costed action plan.
In 2017, Girls Not Brides Nepal conducted a survey with almost 500 government officials and policy makers in 14 districts with high prevalence of child marriage, to raise awareness and secure commitments on allocating budget to end the practice.
Together with UNFPA, Girls Not Brides Nepal helped to create a district-level strategic action plan to end child marriage in Kapilbastu, which has one of the country’s highest rates of child marriage.
Structure
Girls Not Brides Nepal is coordinated by the Center for Research on Environment Health and Population Activities (CREHPA), and Samrakshak Samuha Nepal (SASANE) holds the secretariat.