Voices

In this issue:

• International Day of Education: Calling for governments to prioritise girls' education
• Summit of the Future: Five focus areas for child marriage
• Georgia Arnold: The power of storytelling
• Learning series: CEFMU and the law
• New research: CEPAL bulletin on CEFMU in the LAC region
• CRANK: Share your research in our tracking tool

As the Secretariat, we will continue to offer steadfast support, fostering cooperation and unity among leaders committed to ending CEFMU in recognition that collective action is critical as we collectively influence change across diverse platforms. Our focus is strengthening collaborative initiatives at various levels—sub-national, national, sub-regional, and regional. We aim to co-create impactful solutions to end CEFMU by convening members and enhancing our organisational capacity.

An exciting prospect lies in the intensified engagement with youth leaders and youth-led organisations, amplifying their voices in critical decision-making arenas. I cannot wait to meet some amazing young leaders in Guatemala. Youth voices must reach critical decision-makers.

I am also looking forward to meeting more of our National and State Partnership and Coalition members and witnessing the amazing work they are doing in their country, including strategic engagements to support governments in addressing CEFMU. I hope to meet many more of our members, partners, and supporters this year in other regions, online or face-to-face.

Visit our website and social media channels throughout the year to see for yourself the work that the Partnership is doing.

In solidarity,

Dr. Faith Mwangi-Powell
Chief Executive Officer at Girls Not Brides

📢 ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EDUCATION: Calling for governments to prioritise girls' education

Last Wednesday marked the International Day of Education, an important date to raise awareness of the link between keeping girls in school and preventing child marriage. Girls Not Brides, along with members across the world, shared facts about education in relation to child marriage and called for governments across the world to invest in education. 

See the campaign here on our social media:

SUMMIT OF THE FUTURE: Five focus areas for child marriage

Girls Not Brides and 124 member organisations and partners submitted a written statement to the co-chairs of the Summit, calling for the Pact to lay the ground for radical action and investment for ending child marriage and achieving gender equality across all five of its focus areas.

Georgiana Epure, Senior Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Girls Not Brides, said:

“The Pact for the Future must provide the impetus for more effective global action, cooperation and investment to bring us closer to a future without child, early and forced marriages and unions.”

💡 FEATURED ARTICLE

GEORGIA ARNOLD: The power of storytelling

In a candid and compelling conversation, we had the privilege of delving into her inspiring career and the impact she has made on social norms change, health education and youth empowerment through storytelling.

📖 LEARNING AND EVIDENCE

The bulletin takes an intersectional approach and highlights the links between CEFMU poverty, lack of access to education and health care, discriminatory gender roles, such as the unequal distribution of care work, and systemic racism against indigenous and afro-descendent communities.

Key messages include:

• Informal unions are more common in the region due to legal changes, criminalisation of child and early marriages and cultural, economic and social factors, making it harder to measure, address the issue, and support those already in informal unions.
• There is a lack of data on the issue in national census and polls because of the informality of unions and the national systems for compiling information.
• CEFMU is more common within marginalised communities, including low income families, those with no education and in indigenous and afro-descendant population, demonstrating that CEFMU is a issue related to social, gender and economic inequalities and should be addressed from an integrated and holistic perspective.

CRANK: Share your research in our tracking tool

Our online tracking tool, created as part of the Child Marriage Research to Action Network (CRANK), provides a space for researchers to share their upcoming and completed research on the subject of child marriage. By tracking and categorising child marriage research, we aim to create a more coordinated and harmonised global research agenda on child marriage.

The tracking tool is available here on our website for anyone to use. If you are involved in research, we encourage you to submit the details to our tracker using the form below.

📌 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

CRANK Research Spotlight on education and child marriage

Voluntary National Review Stakeholder Engagement webinars

VNR deadline for expression of interest extended