Melany advocates for girls' rights and an end to early and forced marriage
Melany is a young Dominican woman who advocates for girls' rights – even urging the president to help prevent early and forced marriage and teen pregnancies!
Child marriage
Child, early and forced marriage and unions have been an area of focus for Plan International for many decades and we carry out programmes and influencing work globally to end the practice.
We won’t stop until we are all equal.
We work to end child marriage so adolescent girls have the opportunity and confidence to realise their potential, fulfil their aspirations and enjoy their rights.
On this page all types of child, early and forced marriage and unions will be referred to as child marriage as this is the commonly used and widely understood term. However, Plan International’s preferred term is ‘child, early and forced marriage or union’ to reflect current UN terminology and include informal unions.
For more information on our position on child marriage, download our global policy on child, early and forced marriages and unions.
How Plan is working to end child marriage
Our holistic approach to ending child marriage prevents and responds to the harmful practice, tackling its root causes and supporting married girls with access to the information, support and services they need.
Because of the multiple and complex factors that contribute to child marriage, our work in this area is diverse and links to other areas of our work such as:
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Protection from violence
- Education
- Economic empowerment
- Early childhood development
- Girls’ rights and gender equality
- Humanitarian response.
“One day I will become a leader, my priority will be allocating resources to eliminate child marriage.”
From Vietnam’s indigenous H’mong people, 15-year-old Dung is a voice for the youth in her community, leading local change as she raises awareness of the harmful consequences of child marriage.
Work alongside communities
Some of the ways we are working alongside children, young people and their communities to end child marriage include:
- Creating lasting changes in attitudes to child marriage by working with entire communities to raise awareness of the harmful consequences of child marriage and transform harmful gender norms.
- Facilitating and promoting girls’ education including for married girls.
- Linking girls and young women to vocational skills, business and livelihoods training.
- Increasing access to comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health and rights services to reduce unintended adolescent pregnancies (which can lead to child marriage).
- Supporting married girls and survivors of child marriage.
- Setting up child protection committees that assist in preventing child marriages.
- Supporting girls to understand their rights and be part of efforts to end child marriage.
- Supporting families to earn money so they are not reliant on dowries paid for their daughters’ marriage.
- Supporting the creation of ‘child marriage-free zones’; which are a declaration and commitment made by communities not to allow child marriage to take place in their area.
- Raising awareness of the increased risk of child marriage during crises.
- Training male gender equality champions to model positive gender norms and help end gender inequality in their communities.
- Using mobile teams to travel to remote areas to support girls from marginalised communities who are more at risk of child marriage.
Find out how we got child marriage banned in Dominican Republic
Young people as leaders of change
Young people are central to the movement to end child marriage. Our programmes ensure children – particularly girls – take the lead, are meaningfully involved in the process and are empowered to claim their rights.
We support them to gain advocacy and activism skills, learn about their rights and access platforms so they can engage decision-makers in their schools, communities and regions.
We facilitate peer-to-peer networks and train young mentors to build networks that help girls support each other to say no to child marriage.
Policy, research and technology
We use our presence in political spaces and strong strategic partnerships to advocate and influence policy and legal reform at national, regional and global level, including setting a minimum age of marriage at 18 without exception.
We were part of efforts to create the first ever UN resolution on ending child marriage and have continued to engage in multi-stakeholder efforts to drive progress to end this harmful practice.
Through research and engaging with youth in the development of projects, we ensure they have lasting impact.
We develop media campaigns (with young people) and use innovative digital technologies (online platforms and apps) to raise awareness of child marriage and provide confidential spaces for young people to report suspected cases of early and forced marriages to authorities.
7 short child marriage stories
Seven short films that show how and why we work to end child marriage.
Eliminating child marriage in the Middle East, Eastern and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa
The 18+ Centre of Excellence follows the approach of Plan’s global programme 18+ Ending Child, Early and Forced Marriage and has regional hubs in Eastern and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa.
These hubs provide expertise and support local offices in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of innovative programmes and influencing strategies to end child marriage and teenage pregnancy at local and national levels.
The programme is flexible to accommodate different regional and country-specific challenges, realities and needs.
Eliminating child marriage in Asia and the Pacific
The Time to Act! platform aims to accelerate efforts to eliminate child marriage in Asia.
The platform combines strategy, research and analysis, peer-support and learning, campaigns, and digital solutions to increase the scale, effectiveness and lasting impact of programmes helping to end child marriage.
Time to Act! adapts programmes to accommodate different regional and country challenges, realities and needs, promotes a gender-transformative approach, addresses adolescent sexuality and unintended pregnancy and empowers girls.
The young reporter eliminating child marriage
No students have dropped out of school to get married since Huyen and her fellow young reporters took the lead and began organising communications initiatives to raise awareness in their Vietnamese community.
Where we work to end child marriage
- Middle East, Eastern and Southern Africa: Egypt, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
- West and Central Africa: Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal.
- Asia and the Pacific: Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia.
- Central America: Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras.
Our partners
We work with partners all across the world to end child marriage.
Our partners include:
- Girls Not Brides
- GENET
- AFHADEV (Cameroon)
- NGO Faren (Nepal)
- UNICEF
- UNFPA
- Save the Children
- The Child Rights Coalition
- European Union
- USAID.
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