Child Brides Phase 2

Background

In Turkey, 32% of girls are married before 18 (Source: TUIK, 2006). A global problem; child marriages, predominantly take place in South Asia where 46% of girls are married before they reach 18. Child marriage rates are 66% in Bangladesh, 39% in Afghanistan and 47% in India (Source: UNICEF, 2011).

Project Goals

• In Turkey:
  • A platform on child brides will be established, an action plan will be prepared and advocacy activities will be launched.
  • A nation-wide communication strategy will inform the Turkish community and decision-makers.
  • There will be knowledge-sharing activities among the international “Girls Not Brides” platform members and the project team. Through these activities the national good practices on child brides will be exported abroad while the international ones will be imported to Turkey.

Project Results

• Facebook page became live.
• “No to Child Marriages Platform” was established with the participation of more than 60 members, which represent NGOs and universities and work on diverse disciplines and issues.
• The platform was officially launched on 11 October, International Day of the Girl Child and pushed “child brides” into the agenda of the society.
• To introduce the project at national and international platforms, brochures in Turkish and in English were published.
• With the guidance of the international “Girls Not Brides” platform the project team shared experiences with civil society organizations in India, Bangladesh, Niger and Nigeria to combat child marriage collaboratively, a strategy document was created by platform members.
• Brochures in Turkish and English, information packages covering the issue of child brides in diverse areas including health, law and education and short videos were created in order to bring the subject onto the agenda.

Testimonials

“In India and Bangladesh, we learned the importance of setting local mechanisms into motion in order to succeed. We, as the Flying Broom Association haven’t done much local work, because in an enormous country like Turkey, it’s impossible for us to reach every local mechanism, even on a consulting level. What we learned in India and Bangladesh was that we’ll go but we have to return later; there should be a local mechanism to keep this work going continually. That’s what they’re working for in India and Bangladesh, and we entered that local mechanism. In other words, if we’re unable to find an institution to follow this issue in every city, there’s no way we can fully succeed.”

Project Coordinator

“The platform served as a general wake-up call to many institutions working in various areas on the issue of child marriage. Through the platform, the issue of child brides ceased to be a problem addressed by only a few women’s associations, and became a subject of concern to organizations working in a wide variety of fields.”

Platform Spokesperson