Girls are not Brides: A case study on ending social norms on girl marriage in Northern Malawi

By: Mirriam Kaluwa

Presentation outline

• Introduction

• Situation analysis – child and girl marriage in Malawi

• Social Norms on girl marriage in Northern Region of Malawi

• Implications

• Strategies for ending girl marriage in Northern Malawi

Introduction

• Malawi has a population of 14.4 million

• More women than men (52%)

• Over half the population are children (8.5 out of 14.4 million)

• Country has 28 districts (5 in the North)

• Northern region has one ethnic group – dowry, patrilineal marriage system, predominantly rural

Situation of Child and Girls Marriage in Malawi• 24 per cent of children married before

18 years

• Half of women aged 20-24 wee married before 18

• Northern Region districts amongst the highest (minimum prevalence is 27%

• Nation wide - almost one in four girls (23%) are married vs <2% of boys

Causal Factors of early marriage• It is normal for a girl child to marryEmpirical

Expectations• Girls lose interest in school – love boys/men after reaching

puberty• To improve family economic status through dowry• To sustain the clan - should have more childrenNormative expectations

• Girls still drop out of school after reaching puberty• Older woman – less sexual desire for husband• Shames the family if girl falls pregnant out of wedlock• Educated girl takes control over her husband• Reduced opportunity for bearing more children• Delayed family economic status• Age of marriage 16 years; low birth registration

Factual beliefs

Implications of Girl marriage• Violates child rights to life, education, freedom

of association, separates children from families• Parenting skills?• Health risks - STIs– maternal deaths (50,000 annual deaths world wide

for girls aged 15-19)– Girls aged 10-14 are 5x likely to die due to pregnancy

and child birth than 20-24 year olds– HIV prevalence in girls in Malawi 15-19 (3.7% in

2004 to 4.2% in 2011) Boys 0.4% to 1.3% respectively

Strategies for changing social Norms

• Organized diffusion – Value deliberations on pros and cons of empirical,

normative and normative personal beliefs (already under implementation)

– Current strategy might not target the right reference network. Requires:• social mapping: to identify behavior patterns for

proper programming – snow ball approach. • Network surveys: to identify reference networks to be

targeted with value deliberations

Strategies continued…

• Violence Prevention Campaign– Survey under way to establish the situation

analysis– Campaign should be designed after establishing

empirical expectations, normative personal beliefs, normative expectations, factual beliefs & social networks

– study the reference networks – to identify which social behaviors matter

Strategies continued…• Identify enough people that are willing to change /core groups

– Social mapping to identify people , networks

• Core groups/networks - value deliberations on pros and cons of early marriage

• women models – value deliberations with girls, population at risk

• CSOs – creating public awareness on age at first marriage using value deliberations, campaigns

• Media –Using vignettes – drama, radio programs – disseminate results on change in behavior; create awareness on social behaviors and

their implications; provide alternatives to the scripts of marrying off girls…e.g. Early girls education; Abstinence, family planning

– disrupt the gender schema on categorization of girls …creating personal normative believes; disrupt imperial expectations and creating new networks

• Girls networks - value deliberations on pros and cons of marrying early

Strategies…

• Violating the schema and the script on categorization of women– Schema – girls can not stay in school– Script – girls go to school, drop out after puberty,

get married or have children out of wedlock– Disrupt social network and create new networks

through addressing factual beliefsHow? -Support girls education and empowerment

Strategies…

• Establish M&E system and demonstrate the results on change in social norms– Evaluations – asking the same questions using different wording– E.g. tracking change in Personal normative belief– What comes to your mind when you hear that a girl of 14 is

getting married?– Would you allow your daughter to be married at the age of 14?– What would be your reaction if the government decides to

increase age at first marriage to 21? • Was this the same belief you had 5 years ago?

Thank you