Our 2023 Highlights

As the year draws to a close, we would like to share with you this message from our CEO Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, Head of Asia Engagement Shreya Ghosh, Head of Africa Engagement Nerida Nthamburi, and Head of Latin America and The Caribbean Engagement Alma Burciaga-Gonzalez on their highlights from 2023. 

To all of our 1400 members, and to our numerous supporters, we would like to say thank you for your continued efforts to #EndChildMarriage. Happy Holidays, and we look forward to working together in 2024.

DECEMBER WRAP-UP: AROUND THE WORLD

Photo credit: The Obama Foundation

SOUTH AFRICA: Leaders Convening to End Child Marriage and Support Adolescent Girls in Cape Town

As part of the ongoing collaboration between Girls Not Brides, Girls First Fund, VOW for Girls, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Clooney Foundation for Justice and Girls Opportunity Alliance, dedicated activists and leaders joined together in Cape Town to unite in their efforts to end child marriage and support adolescent girls.

Speakers included Graça Machel, Michelle Obama, Melinda French Gates, Amal Clooney, Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell, Lakshmi Moore, Memory Banda, Rebeca Gyumi, Kadidiatou Konate, and Ulanda Mtamba.

EL SALVADOR: Highlights from EFLAC

This Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting (EFLAC) is held every four years. This year, in El Salvador, we conducted a workshop with five young participants from some of our member organisations.

Key takeaways included:

• An increased prevalence of child, early and forced marriages and unions (CEFMU) in contexts of poverty and violence in both home and community settings, and disproportionately affecting racialised girls and adolescents.
• The need to adopt anti-racist and intersectional perspectives.
• The need to emphasise the progressive autonomy of girls and adolescents in alignment with regional and legal contexts.
• Central to all approaches is the fundamental understanding that girls and adolescents are rights holders, not mere recipients of care.

UGANDA: Girls Not Brides Uganda high-level visit

In November, we joined together with leaders from the Girls Not Brides Uganda National Partnership to discuss how to accelerate efforts to end child marriage in Uganda. During the visit, we met with several members of the National Partnership to hear about the important work they are doing and hear powerful stories of girls who are claiming their rights and choosing their own futures.

Girls Not Brides also visited the Dutch Ambassador to Uganda, Dr. Karin Boven and concluded the trip with a round table, co-hosted by the Dutch embassy in Kampala, to discuss how to better advance partnerships to address child marriage across Uganda.

NEPAL: Movement-Building and Advocacy Leadership Programme Module 2

Selected leaders from our National and State Partnerships across Africa and Asia joined us for our second module of this pilot leadership programme in Kathmandu, Nepal. The programme supports leaders across the global movement to end child marriage to develop their movement-building and advocacy skills and to connect with other leaders from across the movement.

ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS

16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is a global campaign dedicated to raising awareness and taking action against violence inflicted upon girls and women. Beginning on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25th November and ending on Human Rights Day on 10th December, individuals and organizations worldwide united to advocate for an end to gender-based violence and promote gender equality.

Throughout the 16 Days, Girls Not Brides shared important and inspiring stories from across our global partnership to demonstrate how our members are working to end gender-based violence and highlight how much more needs to be done to create a world where every girl and women is respected, protected, and free to choose their own lives.

View all the stories from 16 Days of Activism on our social media:

Towards a future without child marriage: Joint statement calling for the Summit of the Future to prioritise action to end child, early and forced marriage and unions

As the United Nations Summit of the Future 2024 approaches, Girls Not Brides and 124 member organisations and partners have released a joint statement calling for the Pact of the Future to prioritise action to end child, early and forced marriage and unions and address gender inequality.

LATEST RESEARCH

CRANK research meeting

Our final CRANK research meeting of 2023 discussed the latest evidence on child marriage and the urgent need for cross-sectoral collaboration to end child marriage. Key takeaways included:

• There is strong evidence showing that strategies emphasising livelihood skills and training – including financial literacy and vocational training – reduce child marriage.
• There is strong evidence showing cash transfers conditional on schooling are effective in reducing child marriage, but should be included as “add-ons” (rather than single-component interventions) and link to services and systems to deliver at scale. 
• Multi-component, multi-level and multisectoral interventions are key to addressing structural issues in the long term.
• Research should be conducted following gender-transformative principles. 

The research emphasises the importance of recognising root causes such as cultural patterns, impoverishment, social inequality, and gender-based violence to enable comprehensive strategies to prevent CEFMU, aligning with their commendable initiative to achieve zero pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador. The report provides a clear snapshot of the CEFMU situation, its profound impact on the lives of girls, adolescents, and women, and its direct correlation with other issues, possibly overlooked in other regions, such as forced migration due to social violence.