Preventing Early and Forced Marriage in High Prevalence Areas

This project aims to improve the empowerment and physical wellbeing of girls living in communities with a high prevalence of child early and forced marriage. It seeks to strengthen child early and forced marriage prevention systems in Benin and Mali and mitigate the damaging impacts of this practice on girls and the communities. The project is reinforcing alliances between government and civil society organizations strengthening the legal and regulatory frameworks for child protection developing gender-sensitive and child-friendly spaces and building the capacity of service-providers who support victims of early and forced marriage. The project also supports social and behavioural change at the community level. Project activities include: (1) organizing and implementing community dialogues including involving influential community leaders to increase awareness of the damaging impacts of child early and forced marriage and of the key points of child protection; (2) mobilizing NGO networks to advocate for the application of key child protection legislation; (3) engaging the media to disseminate CEFM prevention key messages to reach target populations; (4) delivering awareness raising campaigns through significant child protection awareness days including The Day of the Girl (October 11) and the Day of the African Child (16 June); (5) conducting information sharing on children’s rights with parents of young girls through community learning centres; (6) providing leadership activities for youth through extracurricular activities and social networks to deepen their participation in their communities and increase their awareness of children’s human rights related to early and forced marriage; (7) conducting information sharing activities on STDs and HIV/AIDS for women and youth though community health channels; (8) providing technical assistance to women in village savings and credit associations; and (9) providing technical and institutional strengthening support

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) positive changes in socio-cultural norms and practices related to early and forced marriage; (2) improved quality of intake and rehabilitation services provided to survivors of early and forced marriage; (3) increased effectiveness of civil society organisations and youth to support application of laws relating to child early and forced marriage and girls’ rights.