Child marriage – the need for evidence and action

• Girls and boys, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests

• On behalf of Norad I am delighted to be here today as co-sponsor of Plan Norway’s annual conference on the rights of the girl child and the campaign against child marriage.

• The background for this conference is a tragedy that affects more than 67 million girls globally. One in three girls (34%) in the developing world is married by the age of 18. Globally child marriage levels remain largely unchanged, although there is a decline for girls under age 15. Unless we succeed in changing the trends more than 15 million girls will be married during the next decade.  Why do communities accept that a man marries a child, sometimes young enough to be his grandchild? What can be done to change families’ circumstances so that they don’t view it as necessary to marry off young girls?

• We would like to commend the important AU Campaign against child marriage. Government leadership is key!  One could ask – how many of the countries with high prevalence of child marriage  - that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child - have large scales programmes for the prevention of child marriages? It was encouraging that the Girl Summit held in London this year resulted in commitments from a high number of organizations, governments, businesses, and communities to take action to end FGM and Child, Early and Forced Marriages. We noted in particular that numerous state leaders from countries where child marriage is common made commitments to help end the practice.

• Norway makes contributions through our support to UNICEF and UNFPA as well as to organizations such as PLAN, Save the Children and Norwegian Church Aid who for a long time have been important actors in this area.
To increase all our efforts, we need reliable data:

• Nine out of the ten countries with the highest rates of child marriage are in sub-Saharan Africa, though the largest numbers of girl child brides are in South Asia.  In many countries the rates are more than twice as high in rural as compared to urban parts of the country. It is also a clear pattern that child marriage is less common among the more wealthy and educated groups.

• Nevertheless, our main sources for data on levels and trends are the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) that are not conducted very frequently. They also give us somewhat limited information about how the practice of child marriage is affected by factors like trends in economic development, conflict and security issues, or migration patterns. To be able to have a more precise picture and a better insight into how child marriage relates to other social and environmental factors we need more frequent and detailed studies.

• Improving national registers and having mandatory registration of births and marriages would improve the monitoring of the number of girls who get married and strengthen the protection of individuals.

We need to understand better what leads to change:

• 12 African countries have seen a significant decline in at least some areas of each country. Countries that are showing significant overall decreases of 10% or more in the prevalence of child marriage include Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the United Republic of Tanzania. According to UNFPA some countries in the Asia-Pacific region have shown a considerable decline particularly for girls getting married before age 15.

• What factors that have led to these changes is not well documented, but we have some ideas. For example: In Ethiopia the positive trends are probably due to a combination of better access to education and health services, combined with numerous community based programs that address harmful traditional practices.

What lessons have we learned from programmes that seeks to change other harmful practices?

• We have learned that there is no quick fix to change harmful practices. The causes of child marriage are complex, and dependent on social and economic circumstances and the cultural context. Gender inequality, poverty, and insecurity are some of the underlying conditions. This dictates the need for holistic interventions.

• We have learned that harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) can change through approaches which seek to address the social norms and attitudes towards the practice. Work against (FGM) of girls and young women in Ethiopia supported by Norway over the last decade has shown that this requires to combinecombined action:  at to change Iinternational agreement such as the UN resolution against FGM of 2012, proposed by African countries where FGM is practiced, this is a milestone. norms, with Eefforts at the national level to change laws and influence sector plans and the media, and efforts at the local level with community mobilization, dialogue and outreach campaigns. Changing norms means that boys and men also need to be engaged.

• Where positive changes take place, religious and traditional leaders are important actors and often involved in a constructive way.
Education of girls is key but not enough.

• In all countries, early marriage is less frequent among women who have attended secondary education or higher. To be married off at an early age normally means that the girl will not get the chance to get back to school.

• Still, education alone cannot solve the problem. A recent study published by USAID found that in many countries there has been an increase in age at marriage, despite stagnation in level of education. In other places there has been a decline in age at marriage despite an increase in level of education.  Some of the questions we need to ask related to education are: How can education be strengthened as a strategy to combat child marriage? What factors can encourage parents to send girls to school instead of marrying them off?

• Economic incentives to keep girls in school have proven effective. Programs in Malawi and Tanzania have found that cash transfer have led to more girls continuing school and reduced rates of early pregnancies and early marriages.

We need more knowledge and better evidence about what works

• Unfortunately, programs and projects for prevention of child marriage are too often small scale and time limited pilot projects. Moreover, relatively few programs are properly monitored or evaluated.

• We know that changing norms and cultural practices is difficult. I therefore would like to challenge everyone here to carefully evaluate their programs, to share knowledge about promising practices, and take successful interventions to scale.

• For all the girl brides, we need to be impatient. Work effectively, work together, gather evidence, and challenge governments and communities to end this practice now.
Thank you for your attention.