Voices

Dear friend,

Explore our May newsletter for highlights on the strategic donor meetings, ICPD and our ending child marriage initiatives, and calls for free education rights. Discover UN human rights tools, mental health impacts of child marriage, and opportunities for emerging activists.

🤝EVENTS

1️⃣ Accelerating action: We need to accelerate our work and investments for girls in the hardest-to-reach places and in regions where we are seeing the least progress.
2️⃣ Enhancing Collaboration with Humanitarian Sectors: We need more collaboration with the humanitarian sector so we have better accountability and programming for girls living in vulnerable settings.
3️⃣ Navigating Shrinking Civic Space Creatively: Now more than ever, we need to think creatively about how we operate in an increasingly shrinking civic spaces.
4️⃣ Unifying for Advocacy in 2024: We have opportunities to come together for key advocacy moments in 2024 to show our shared support and collaboration as we work towards 2030.

This year more than ever, we need to work together to protect girls’ and women's rights and accelerate our progress towards the 2030 Agenda.

📢 ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS

🩺ICPD30: Sexual and reproductive health and rights are key to ending child marriage

In the video, Maria Luiza Mendez, the Director of Paz Joven, a Girls Not Brides member organisation in Guatemala, delivers an oral statement on behalf of Girls Not Brides during the ICPD

In New York, our advocacy highlighted ongoing challenges in achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights, despite notable progress in areas like reducing child and maternal mortality and shifting harmful gender norms. Even 30 years after the ICPD Programme of Action, girls and women continue to face barriers in gaining access to sexual and reproductive information, as well as health-care services, including family planning and comprehensive sexuality education.

📚HRC: We’re calling for expanded rights to free education to prevent child marriage - join us!

1. Write to your government asking for their support for the resolution and the initiative, in advance of the Human Rights Council June session, using this template letter. The letter can be personalised, adding details from your experience and/or country. More country-level data can be found in our child marriage atlas and UNICEF’s country profiles; we also have an education brief and research spotlight with more evidence around the links between child marriage and girls’ education.
2. Raise awareness of the links between child marriage and girls’ education, using our social media toolkit.
3. Ensure your government fulfils its human rights commitments, using our toolkit for civil society organisations to engage in your country’s review on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

📖 LEARNING AND EVIDENCE

What is this toolkit?
This toolkit is designed to support civil society organisations in their vital mission to end child marriage and support girls who are – or have been – married or in a union. It is more than just a compilation of legal texts and procedural guidelines: it is a practical companion, offering actionable steps and promising practices from Girls Not Brides member organisations around the globe.

It is structured into four main sections, one for each key human rights monitoring mechanism:

1. The Committee on the Rights of the Child
2. The Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women
3. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
4. The Universal Periodic Review

It can be viewed as one text, or each chapter can be accessed as a standalone section. It includes all the relevant information to engage with these mechanisms at all stages of the reporting cycle to advance national-level advocacy and press governments to take action to end child marriage and respect, protect and fulfil girls’ rights.

🧠CRANK Symposium: What's known and what's next – Charting future action on the mental health consequences of child marriage

The first Child Marriage Research to Action Network (the CRANK) opportunity of 2024 was a symposium on child marriage and mental health, hosted by the University College London (UCL) Global Network on Mental Health and Child Marriage, in collaboration with the CRANK. This is a hybrid in-person and online event, hosted on Zoom and at UCL, London.

We know that mental health conditions – like anxiety and depressive disorders – are among the top causes of burden of disease among adolescents. We also know that approaches that work with girls and boys together are most effective at reducing gender-based violence.

But the evidence base on the mental health consequences of child marriage is thin and suggests that few programmes focus specifically on the mental health needs of girls and women who marry before age 18.

This half-day symposium brought together researchers, practitioners, policymakers and donors to explore the existing evidence on the mental health consequences of child marriage, and on what works to support girls who are – or have been – married.

🌍Women Deliver Emerging Leaders: Apply to the Emerging Leaders for Change East Africa Cohort

The Women Deliver Emerging Leaders for Change Programme is a two-year leadership programme that supports passionate young activists with the resources, platforms, connections, and trainings necessary to amplify and achieve their advocacy goals. 

Who Is Eligible for the Programme? 

Young people (aged 15-29) of any gender and sexual identity who: 

• Live and work in Burundi , Ethiopia , Kenya , Rwanda , Tanzania , or Uganda 
• Advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and/or gender equality, particularly focusing on advocacy that affects adolescent girls within their communities. Preference will be given for those interested or experienced in our focus issue areas: universal health coverage, the climate crisis, and countering the anti-rights movement. 

🕒  DEADLINE: 30 MAY 2024 AT 11:59 pm (23:59) EAT 

📌 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

Reflecting on Skoll World Forum 2024: the time is now to invest in girls' and women’s movements

CSW68: Agreed Conclusions

#DialogarParaCambiar event in Guatemala