Child Marriage remains a big problem in many countries around the world. It deprives young girls from essential rights, such as health and education.
Together with Dutch organizations Kinderpostzegels and The Hunger Project, and with financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we implemented an intensive, one year project to boost the efforts of local partners in fighting and preventing child marriage. We focused on Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Description
This was a one year project that ICDI implemented together with Dutch organizations Kinderpostzegels and The Hunger Project. It was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ICDI and its local partners SDS (Bangladesh), CWIN (Nepal) and Bedari (Pakistan) implemented activities such as: setting up girls clubs, giving life skills training for girls (and boys!), awareness raising on the importance of keeping girls in school with parents and communities, and lobby with governments for better laws to fight child marriage.
Activities
- setting up girls clubs (where girls can discuss the issues they face)
- organizing life skills training for girls and boys, to empower them in standing up for their rights
- awareness raising with parents and communities on the importance of keeping girls in school, instead of marrying them off at an early age
- improving access and quality of sexual and reproductive health services for girls and young women
- lobby and advocacy with governments to improve legislation that bans child marriage
Results
In the end over 20,000 girls benefited from this project. In the countries we worked in we managed to make many communities child marriage free. The groundwork laid in this project will continue within the Her Choice programme (see above on this website).
