Child marriage continues to be an urgent matter around the globe, forcing millions of girls into marriage each year. Susanne Legena, CEO of Plan International Australia, stresses the importance of a holistic, comprehensive strategy to address this crisis. She calls for investing in education, digital literacy and empowering women and girls. She emphasizes the need to break the cycle of child marriage by tackling it on three distinct fronts: education, skills training, and digital awareness.
In her recent visit to a village in Cambodia, Legena encountered Chantha, a 21-year-old teacher who faced societal pressure to marry at 15. Chantha’s story is a powerful reminder of the reality girls around the world experience in areas where child marriage is seen as an inescapable fact of life. With an estimated 12 million girls married before age 18 each year, the need to act quickly is clear.
The Role of Education and Skills Training
Legena is a strong proponent of improved education and skills training as key to giving girls a brighter future. She believes that equipping girls with knowledge about their rights can empower them to make informed choices about their futures.
“Every girl deserves to be a child, not just a wife,” Legena stated, highlighting the importance of protecting girls’ childhoods. Equalize access to an effective educational curriculum, including life skills and vocational training, for girls. This comprehensive approach can expand collateral career opportunities while working to make them less vulnerable to early marriage.
Additionally, digital literacy, the ability to use technology and online resources effectively and responsibly has become an essential frontier in today’s education. Legena is a passionate advocate for incorporating digital literacy into the curriculum. This understanding will enable girls to identify online grooming and avoid the dangers of digital relationships altogether. This policy is a step toward fostering a safer atmosphere for young girls who are learning to navigate the adversities of the online sphere.
The Impact of Social Media and Digital Relationships
One unintended consequence of the rapid expansion of social media has been to increase girls’ exposure to new forms of child marriage-related risks. These platforms can offer young women deep-seated feelings of belonging and independence. They come with insidious risks that aren’t readily apparent. Legena paints the picture of this phenomenon as a troubling but effective reconfiguration of old practices to the new technological reality.
“The pathway is modern but the destination is tragically familiar,” she remarked, illustrating how digital relationships can create an illusion of choice for young girls. This illusion easily conceals the harsh social forces that continue to determine their marital fates.
Chantha’s experience underscores this reality. She combined traditional astrology with cutting edge app technology to find her life partner. Her fate became the reality of countless child brides who found themselves in arranged marriages. “Maybe [an older husband] can help his wife to live well — have an easy life,” Chantha reflected, indicating how societal expectations shape perceptions of marriage.
Empowering Girls to Challenge Norms
Empowerment to choose for themselves as well as supervision has proven effective against child marriages. KaathPencil, headed by Samia Khan Priya in Bangladesh, works to engage and empower girls with education on their rights. They encourage these young ladies to flip the script on stereotypes. Priya is all about girls understanding how to navigate this world with confidence and express what it is that they want and need.
They want them to be able to critically engage and learn, to communicate with the rest of the world, Priya explained, “but they don’t want that shame children can bring to a family if a child is engaged in any relationship.” This stigma of societal discrimination drives the families to marry off their girls as early as possible, which again causes the cycle to continue.
Legena reiterates that friendship and promises of freedom from confining family environments can be alluring for girls aged 14 or 15. When societal pressures pit themselves directly against personal desires, choices become even harder. This uncertainty frequently holds individuals to deadlines they aren’t ready to meet.
