A Hidden Reality for Adolescent Girls: Child, Early and Forced Marriages and Unions in Latin America and the Caribbean

"[T]raditional social structures, gender norms, legal frameworks, political institutions and economic arrangements together create unhelpful or harmful constraints and challenges for vulnerable girls and women in the eight study countries."

Across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in 2017, 23% of women aged 20-24 had been married or in union by age 18 and 5% by age 15. This research focuses on LAC adolescent girls in child, early, and forced marriages and unions (CEFMUs) to make their specific needs visible, with the aim of working to change the social norms that perpetuate this violation of their human rights. Plan International and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) conducted the regional study across Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru.

Teams of researchers and Plan International staff, with the support of UNFPA, joined forces to establish a shared research protocol and generate data that could be compared across the 8 country settings. The research focused on social and gender norms and creatively adapted the Social Norms Analysis Plot (SNAP) methodology developed by CARE. The research relied on semi-structured interviews with girls, members of their families and communities, and government and civil society leaders. The vignettes and interview questions highlighted key themes of sexuality, choice, decision-making, femininity and masculinity, the transition to adulthood, schooling, employment opportunities, and violence. Each team also reviewed demographic and other quantitative data and conducted a scan of relevant policies. The teams recognised the particular lack of information about indigenous groups and their practices that might affect the meaning of CEFMU in their communities.

The research provided insights into how girls and young women and their families and communities frame and understand CEFMU. The findings in the report are organised according to the study's Theory of Change (norms and gender inequality, resources and supports, and laws and policies). In short, girls' guardians and sexual partners exert control over their sexuality through imposed silence, restriction of physical movement, and gender-based violence (GBV). Young, with limited education and few personal or economic resources, some girls see CEFMU as their only option. The patterns of gender disadvantage, poverty, and relationship violence that girls often face in their natal home may be replicated with their partners in their unions. Neither political, legal, policy, judicial, and community leadership, nor parents, seem able to sufficiently shield girls from the known risk factors for entering into unions, nor from the known hazards once they are in CEFMUs. The available data also confirm that this issue has little visibility or policy priority in most of the countries studied. In many cases, current laws, customs and beliefs combine to sideline constructive laws that are passed, and a lack of political will or administrative resources hamper their implementation.

The country reports and regional analysis yielded the recommendations below:

Overarching regional priorities:

• Develop a common perspective by forging a regional, rights-based consensus on shared terminology and understandings about the implications of CEFMU.
• Mobilise researchers to highlight data and evidence gaps and to advocate for stronger systems for collecting more meaningful and relevant data, including on girls 10-14 years of age.
• Include the LAC region in global discussions on challenges and highlight the prevalence and regional characteristics of CEFMU. Bring global lessons learned about CEFMU to the strengthening of LAC local initiatives.

With regard to social norms, attitudes, behaviours, and relations:

• Work to change community norms about girls' potential and roles in life.
• Strengthen girls' voices as agents of change so that girls speak up for themselves and others and speak out against CEFMU.
• Engage media to address, counter, and transform the norms that shape traditional gender roles and limit girls' opportunities.
• Work with community leaders to reduce social tolerance to CEFMU.

With regard to social and economic resources and safety nets:

• Enable and encourage girls to complete secondary school, and strengthen school systems that make this possible. Expand safe spaces for girls to connect with each other and interact with mentors.
• Include measures that address poverty and the financial incentives that drive the practice in efforts to eliminate CEFMU.
• Strengthen girls' economic prospects and employment opportunities.
• Build intergenerational solidarity and strengthen families by giving parents the skills and information to engage with and protect their children.
• Expand safe spaces for girls to connect with each other and interact with mentors.
• Expand equitable access to quality, affordable, gender-responsive, adolescent-and-youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.

With regard to policy frameworks and budgets, some examples include:

• Emphasise multisectoral responses to CEFMU that reflect the complexity and scale of its impact on girls' lives.
• Develop and enforce a strong anti-CEFMU legal framework that harmonises across relevant laws.
• Provide comprehensive sexuality education to all children, adolescents, and youth, whether they are in or out of school, and develop new ways of reaching adults with this information.
• Present and discuss legal frameworks about CEFMU with girls and boys at school so they are aware of their own rights.
• Strengthen systems for civil registration and vital statistics to ensure girls are recognised as citizens deserving of protection under the law and that their unions are documented.
• Strengthen the enabling environment and operating space for civil society to demand accountability for police and justice system to implement new laws on child marriage.