BRAC has extensive experience addressing child marriage in Bangladesh through various programs. They operate programs to build girls' agency, change social norms, and mobilize communities. Their work has led to an 18% reduction in reported child marriages, prevention of over 750 child marriages, and increased aspirations for daughters' futures among women. BRAC utilizes a holistic approach involving multiple stakeholders like adolescents, parents, religious leaders, and local government to end child marriage.

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BRAC’s Experience in Ending Child Marriage
Presented by
Sheepa Hafiza
Director, Gender Justice and Diversity and Migration Programme, BRAC
Convener, Girls Not Brides Bangladesh Alliance - GNBBA
Dhaka, 7 October 2015

2. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
Child Marriage : where we are in Bangladesh
 Highest rate of child marriage in South Asia (66%) and fourth position in
world.
 39% of Bangladeshi girls are married before 15 and 74% before 18.
(http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures)
 29% of adolescent girls (aged 15-19) are currently married (icddr,b and
Plan International 2013 )
 Occurs 80% in poor families and 53% in solvent families (ibid)
 81 % of marriages are registered. (ibid)
 Among this, 45 % are held in home, 14 % in office of the marriage
registrars and 2 % in other cases. (ibid)

3. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
Reasons behind child marriage
Based on the findings of BRAC district level workshop with Marriage registrars & religious leaders
Child
Marriage
Income
Poverty
Social
Insecurity
Lack of Proper
implementatio
n and
monitoring of
existing
policies & laws
Lack of
awareness
among parents
on harmful
effect on their
girls with CM
Lack of
accountability
of marriage
registrars
Local power
structure &
dynamics
Easy access of
false age
certificate

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Consequences of child marriage
Education
• 76 % girls (80
% in rural areas
and 60 % in
urban ) drop
out from school
at secondary
level (icddr’b
and Plan
International
2013)
Health &
Nutrition
• 20 % girls
become mother
before 15
• 45 % low weight
and stunted
children are born
• 5 % of the
mothers who are
aged below 18,
face risk of death
during child
birth.(UNFPA
2013)
Poverty
• Child brides are
deprived of the
opportunity to
acquire skills that
will enable them to
uplift them and
their families from
poverty (ICRW
2011)
Domestic
violence
• Girls/wife
murdered by
domestic
violence, 70 %
are aged between
13 to 18 year
(Bangladesh
Bureau of
Statistics 2013)

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Addressing child marriage issues in Bangladesh
• Recently programmes are more focusing to address issues related to Child & Forced
Marriage
• Programmes on Child Marriage need to be addressed by holistic approach focusing on
changing gender norms, social expectations and perspectives towards girls
• Not Possible
– to end CFM without efforts of agency building of girls
– And without building collective and holistic movement against it

6. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
WHO TO BE INVOLVED?
WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?
• Adolescent- married and in risk of early marriage (aged 10 to 18)
• Youth (aged 15 to 24 )
• Parents
• Teachers
• Community people- friends & relatives
• Marriage registrars & religious leaders
• Local government
• Law enforcing agency
• Policy makers

7. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
BRAC mechanism for Transforming inequitable structures and exploitative relations
of power
Opportunities for economic, social and political participation
Decentralization of resources
Accountability and transparency
Transformation of inequitable structures and
exploitative relations of power
Rights and choices
Mobilization and voice
Capabilities, assets, resources
Empowerment
Opportunity
structures
Informal
Institutions
“Invisible power”
-Family,
community
- Culture,
traditions
- Social
hierarchies
Formal
Institutions
“Visible power”
- Laws and rules
- State agencies,
civil society
organizations
- Markets
- Political parties

8. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
GQAL
BRAC initiative to address CFM
BRAC’s
platforms for
reaching
87,76,572
youth (out of
57 million)
Space, mobility &
skill building for
income generation
Access to
information and
services
Solidarity,
connection and
platform
Changing gender
norms & DVAW free
life
Leadership &
confidence
building1,77,910 student
MEJNIN
ADP
2,73,367
student
STAR
SRHR
BRAC Maya
GNBBA50,018 youth
GQAL (390,000 HH)
Gonokendra

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WHY includes
Youth?
• To create
responsible
future citizens
who will be
sensitive towards
equal rights of
women and men
• Youth are
especially
expected to
protest (in public
places) sexual
harassment
against women,
consider child
marriage and
other forms of
violence against
women and girls
as a crime
HOW they work?
• Work as
community
volunteers
• work as change
agents in the
mind-set of their
peers, act on any
incidences of
their
surroundings
collectively,
response with
other GQAL
platforms
• Take proactive
initiative in their
locality to prevent
Child Marriage
WHAT are the key
interventions?
• Raising
awareness
through regular
forums, video
show, youth
gathering
• Formation of
youth association
networks and
End Violence
Against Women
Committee
(EVAWC)
• Sharing opinions
with marriage
registrars,
religious leaders
, government
officials, etc.
• Advocacy
initiatives
HOW many are
the impact Youth?
• Total 7700 Youth
are working in 40
unions (sub-sub
district) of eight
districts
• Among them
3689 are Female
and 4011 are
Male
• A number of
36354 female
and 28324 male
students are
intervened by
GQAL especially
for building
themselves
protective
against sexual
harassment
Gender Quality Action Learning (GQAL) Programme

10. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
RESULT 18% (68,250) of women reported (M&E Findings, 2015) child marriage at their
communities which was 73.% at baseline (2012)
Knowledge level of girls and boys about sexual harassment based on selected index
increased by 65% and 69% consequently (M&E Findings, 2015)
769 (78%) child marriage stopped and socially reintegrated out of 983 reported cases
(Field Registers of 2013-2014)
90% (3, 50, 337) of women responded about their dream regarding daughters’ future as
being a doctor/engineer/service holder and 14% (54, 990) women responded about their
wish regarding daughters’ future as home makers (M&E Findings, 2015)
A total of 5 Union declared by GoB rep as completely child marriage free Union out of 40
(Field Reports) and also 371 spots of 770 declared as child marriage free
2,61,300 (67%) are able to enjoy male partners changed (favorable) gender roles at
household level (M&E Findings, 2015)
• Customised model of GQAL has been piloted with the Manosi intervention of MNCH
programme (currently works with 6.9 million urban slum dwellers of nine city corporations)
• Work in progress to integrate with Micro Finance Programme
•,

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Policy Advocacy &
Networking
Prevention,
Protection,
Mobilization &
Psychosocial
councelling
Awareness,
Leadership,
conscientization
& Psychosocial
cancelling
School
(120,000
students)
Community/
neighbourhoods
(70,000 SWG, CWG,
teacher, parents,)
District and National level
(Police, Administration, Media, Districts
Network and Alliance, BRAC
Programmes)
MEJNIN
Safe Citizenship for Girls
Combating SH at public places

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Key Findings of MEJNIN Pilot Evaluation
Period 2010-2011
• Significant change in knowledge level of the
respondents/girls in treatment areas
compared to the control areas (Treatment
82% Control: 48%)
• Attitude level changed compared to the
control areas. Are in Treatment 38% & in
Control 28%)
• Reporting of any kind of sexual harassment
by the respondents in treatment areas was
higher compared to the control areas
(Treatment 41%, Control 25%)
• Drop-out of girl student decreased (5% in
2010 and 2% in 2014)
Period Sep. 2013 – June 2015
• 23% girls reported to their parents
about sexual harassment incidents
• 57% girls students are able to resist,
protest sexual harassment in their
lives.
• 69% teachers, parents and CWG
member have become attentive/ alart
of any incidence of sexual
harassment
• School drop out of girls reduced to
2% from 5% among 348 schools
from 2010 -2014. (BRAC Survey)

13. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
MEJNIN- Lessons Learnt
1. Individual and group social communication collectively can break Culture
of Silence and advance inter-generational relationship
2. Neighborhood Connectivity, Solidarity and Social Networks helps to end
SH & FCM,
3. However, intra-family psychosocial support is a must for social
reintegration of survivors
4. Young people have the HIGHEST potential agencies for change
5. Include SRHR knowledge building in ending VAWC
6. Proactive Community Networks plays innovative and vital role to include
un-approachable population, e.g power players, politicians
7. Following MEJNIN model dignified access to Citizens Rights of women
and girls can be successfully and cost effectively scaled up to areas such
as, transport, Cyber net, access to public places - Hospitals, Markets, Play
Grounds, etc. in any part of the world
SHafiza-MEJNIN-BRAC14

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BRAC Maya to Ensure Access to Information for
Gender Justice
Key features
• Based on a website
(www.maya.com.bd) and mobile app
named ‘Maya Apa’
• Accessible from computer, android
phone and feature phone
• Anonymous and provides pertinent
answers to questions received on
VAW, SRHR specially early pregnancy
within 48 hours
• Referral service for stopping child
marriage
• Total 24k question received
• Total 7.1 million women and girls
reached for accessing the BRAC
Maya information services
Maya Apa – mobile app

15. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
Networking and platform building
Secretariat of Girls Not Brides Bangladesh Alliance
Major highlights
• Advocacy letter on SDG to honorable Prime Minister, women affairs Minister,
health minister, education minister and UN permanent representative to
Bangladesh government
• Initiate the movement on protesting Govt.’s proposal of lowering the minimum
age of marriage collectively through press conference, statement, human
chain, seminar etc
• Recent high level lobby meeting with Finance Minister
• National level sharing meeting with govt., marriage registrars, CSOs, youth
• National level consultation on draft Child Marriage Restraint Act ,2014 and
compiling recommendations
• Lobby with global level, i.e. issuing open letter from former UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan on behalf of GNB elder’s group to influence Bangladesh
government not to lower the minimum age of marriage

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Continue…
• Global advocacy by commenting on proposed SDG to support
retaining the specific target on CEFM under the goal 5
• Review of National Action Plan on Child Marriage
• Contributing the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
(OHCHR) on its report in the areas of prevalence, impact, steps taken
and effective strategy to combat child marriage
• organizing upcoming Bangladesh Girl Summit 2015 in
partnership with the GNBBA, GoB, DFID, DFAT and UNICEF

17. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
Request from Government
• Successful example: Kurigram
Deputy Commissioner requests
BRAC to organize workshop with
local marriage registrars to
sensitize on preventing child
marriage

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It is possible to end
child marriage by one
generation with the
support of laws,
proper implementation
of laws, collective
efforts and political will

19. facebook.com/BRACWorldwww.brac.net twitter.com/BRACWorld
Thank you