1. Child marriage and ‘sugar daddies’
Gender-based violence learning series
GHI, SRAN & HIVOS SA Hub

2. Photo: Mercy Chigubu, 2015
Child marriage

3. Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age - UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1990
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child etc recognize the right to free and full consent to marriage – child marriage however, contradicts this
Definition

4. Globally more than 700 million women alive today were married before their 18th birthday
17% of these women, or 125 million, live in Africa
More than 1 in 3 of these women and girls (over 40 million) entered into marriage or union before age 15
In Africa, children who are married are most likely found in rural areas and among the poorest segment of the population
Boys are also married as children, but girls are disproportionately affected
Prevalence
Sources:
UNICEF –, 2015 – see background document
A growing child population combined with a slow decline in the practice of child marriage in Africa will put millions more girls at risk. If current trends continue, almost half of the world’s child brides in 2050 will be African
Photo by Granville (Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard) / Public domain

5. Effect on the child bride
Girls who marry are denied their childhood.
They are likely to be socially isolated with minimal support or contact with family/friends
Girls will have limited opportunities for education and employment.
Lower levels of education are found among women who married in childhood
Health problems due to early pregnancy
Risk of HIV
Depression and anxiety (sometimes suicidality)
Burdened with household responsibilities without sufficient support
Intergenerational effects – health and developmental problems of child bride’s children
Effect on the child bride

6. What drives child marriage?
Child marriage is rooted in gender inequality (the socially constructed belief that girls and women are inferior to boys and men)
Poverty (and insecurity eg. War)
Lack of education
Lack of employment opportunities
Cultural and religious practices
Unplanned pregnancy
Inequitable gender norms: Girls and women are valued for roles traditionally confined to the home such as taking care of children and the household.
Inadequate investments by families in girls' education: Girls with higher educational attainment are less likely to marry before age 18 than girls who had no education.
Poverty: Girls living in poor households are nearly twice as likely to marry before 18 years than girls in higher income homes.
Lack of employment opportunities: Where girls have no access to decent employment opportunities, confounded by poverty and lack of education, they are at risk of marrying early
Unplanned preganancy: In Africa, in particular, girls who engage in premarital sexual relations or fall pregnant unexpectedly are often expected to marry.
Religious affiliation: A variety of religions are associated with child marriage across the globe

7. What works to end child marriage?
Improving gender equitable norms and providing more opportunities for girls
Providing comprehensive sexuality education and youth-friendly reproductive health services to reduce unplanned pregnancy
Removal of school tuition fees by governments have shown some success in sub Saharan Africa
Interventions incorporating an empowerment and incentives for girls and families
Fostering an enabling legal and policy framework
What works to end child marriage?
1. Improving gender equitable norms and providing more opportunities for girls, especially in the areas of education and employment (Petroni, 2017; Population Council, 2017). Petroni and colleagues (2017).
2. Providing comprehensive sexuality education and youth-friendly reproductive health services, rates of early pregnancy can be reduced - which is a driver of child marriage.
3. Removal of tuition fees by governments in 8 sub-Saharan African countries have led to modest average declines in child marriage. The prevalence of child marriage dropped by more than 10 percentage points in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda. (Koski et al, 2017).
4. Findings from the Population Council’s Global State of the Evidence (2017) suggested that interventions incorporating an empowerment, either as the sole approach or in conjunction with another approach, had the greatest success in prevention of child marriage.
5. Fostering an enabling legal and policy framework to establish a minimum age of marriage and to advocate for new policies and enforcement of existing laws/policies serve as protective factor in early marriage (ICRW, 2011)

8. What still needs to be done?
Research on the needs of adolescents already in marriages
More rigorous knowledge on what works to delay child marriage so interventions can be scaled up
More rigor in the quality of intervention implementation
Explore new government and private sector platforms and partnerships in the education, health and economic sectors
Innovative social change mechanisms to speed up the pace of change (ie. Technologies)
Photo by Plan Canada

9. Transactional sex: “sugar daddies” and “blessers”
Photo credit: The South African.com 2016

10. What is transactional sex?
“Non-commercial, non-marital sexual relationships motivated by the implicit assumption that sex will be exchanged for material support or other benefits” (Stoebenau et al 2016)
Non-commercial – sets it apart from sex work and the fact that it often involves romantic relationships.
Transactional sex is increasingly being recognized as a key social dynamic which contributes to the high HIV rates among young African women
What is transactional sex?

11. Sex for basic needs – assumption that woman is the victim of her circumstances
Sex for improved social status – assumption that women have agency over their sexual decision making
Sex and material expressions of love – men as providers and women in roles of reproductive labour
Why does it happen?
These three paradigms have been identified as drivers of transactional sex but are not distinct paradigms but rather on a continuum and may overlap
There is a rise in findings in studies of attaining “commodities of modernity” that is driven by globalization (Ranganathan et al, 2017; Leclerc-Madlala 2003). In South Africa, Bhana and Pattman (2011) found that young people living in poor townships are drawn to acquiring fashionable goods and clothes because they associate it with middle class life and separates their poorer rural-based counterparts.

12. There is a rise in findings in studies of attaining commodities of modernity that is driven by globalization
In South Africa, it was found that young people living in poor townships are drawn to acquiring fashionable goods and clothes because they associate it with middle class life and separates their poorer rural-based counterparts.
Why does it Happen (2)

13. Women who engage in transactional sex are more at risk of HIV as they:1
Structural factors such as poverty, gender inequality and socio-historical contexts of countries may fuel HIV infection 2
Women may choose a partner but once in relationship agency weakens and they have less control and may experience violence. 3
Dynamics of transactional sex often contribute to gender imbalance and inequality in relationships 4
effects

14. Women should be empowered economically and through education
Programmes should work with men and boys to shift negative attitudes and practices toward gender and sexuality
Interventions should address social norms and harmful attitudes
Income generation training within HIV prevention education programmes may empower young women
Working with youth on resilience and protective skills to help youth make informed decisions about their health and safety in relationships.
What can be done?

15. Thank you