Child marriage is a formal or informal union that takes place before the age of 18. This practice has a devastating impact on girls in Ethiopia, but by encouraging children to participate in community decisions, cases can drop dramatically
In 2021, JOFA’s Needs Assessment Report found alarming child marriage and child pregnancy rates in Ethiopia.
Even though the culture of forcing girls to marry at an early age was an already existing part of the culture, the situation especially worsened during the armed conflict in Ethiopia.
When families fled their homes, many of them forced young girls to get married in the desperate belief that marriage could protect them. Even if the situation gets better and communities can return to their home districts, child marriage culture still prevails.
Girls often do not know when their parents have decided to marry them and, frequently, they are forced to get married to older men, causing them many adverse impacts on their physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychosocial wellbeing.
The most prevalent risk they face is the probability of getting pregnant. Young girls are not ready in any sense to be mothers when they are forced to get married. Furthermore, they do not have a say or awareness in the utilization of contraceptives and delaying pregnancy.
Frequently, the newly wedded girl ends up pregnant within a few weeks of marriage. This has a devastating health and social impact on girls, leading to complicated pregnancy, obstructed labor, post-term complications and even death.
In addition to these complications, married girls immediately drop out of school. In many cases, a high number of child marriages don’t go that far. On several occasions, men seek divorce and get married to a new child. Usually, the community rejects divorced girls who are stigmatized so they can’t return to school or enjoy a proper social life in their own villages.
This situation has been especially alarming in the Oromia Region East Hararghe zone, in districts of Babile and Chinaksen districts where different community and school-based programs are in place by JOFA project to tackle child marriage issues.
However, as documented by the JOFA’s Needs Assessment Report, child rights committees and other structures of child participation were not functional and existed just by names.
Power to children, power to communities
To tackle the existing situation, SOS Children Villages Ethiopia has provided support to increase child participation, conducting campaigns and awareness-raising events on children’s rights and early marriage, among other child protection topics. The impact of these activities resulted in more functional and active children’s clubs in more than 20 kebeles / villages, partnerships with local governments, and more than 200 community-based child protection groups.
The project aims to facilitate the means and links between stakeholders around child protection issues by creating a platform where different actors come together to identify and resolve child marriage issues.
Religious leaders are now not providing their blessings to marriages involving children or with no full and explicit consent of women
The outcomes of children’s platform have an immediate impact on the communities. Religious leaders are now not providing their blessings to marriages involving children or with no full and explicit consent of women. Women groups have included in their bylaws against child marriage. By, which any family forcing children to marriage is reported to the police immediately.
In addition to these informal mechanisms, formal structures are also revitalized. Police, Child Rights Committees, schools, and government administration started to work with children to improve the flow of information and response.
As a result, cases of early marriage have dropped dramatically during the past year and the number of girls enrolled in school has significantly increased.
Mr. Asledin Kemal, school principal of Lakole primary school, reports increased school enrolment mainly because of children’s and young student’s initiatives participating in JOFA project activities.
According to Mr. Kemal, compared to last academic year his school recorded almost a 22% increase of children enrolled in this year thanks to student clubs and other organizations. Furthermore, the proportion of girls has significantly improved and this year more than 55% of students who resumed their education are girls.
Shek Abdukerim Umere explains this trend because now communities and families are defeating the long-rooted social barrier for girls to go to school and the lack of awareness, wrong belief, persisting tradition, and the assignment of girls in home to take care of the family at home that guided families in the past.
JOFA’s intervention has stimulated the change of mind of communities, awaking families on the rights of children and their protection needs. Decrease in child marriages and high rates of girls’ enrolment in school are just two examples of how well-informed and active communities can achieve if participation is boosted.
Rehana Muse, a 14-year-old survivor of forced child marriage, explains how she was able to return to her home after her classmates reported her marriage to the local authorities: “The whole experience was traumatizing” says Rehana, “but thanks to my friends, teachers and administration, I was able to get back home without further suffering. At first, I didn’t want to get out or meet anyone. But the advice I got from teachers helped me to be stronger. Now I have returned to school, and I am a member of the school’s child club.”
SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia is strongly working on supporting different initiatives for children in and out of schools, encouraging child participation on issues concerning children and able to mobilize various formal and informal social structures . Now children are leading the way for eliminating early child marriage and other traditional practices that harm children.
The experience from Babile district is strong evidence of how child participation and child leadership can bring social change. Integrating child participation with existing structures also makes the effort more fruitful. As observed in East Hararge, active participation of children and able to voicing their concern strengthens the collaboration among law enforcement, religious leaders, and local government authorities.