Boyhood and Child, Early, and Forced Marriages and Unions: An Evidence Review

"...the transformation of deeply held gender norms requires the participation of all those who uphold or participate in that set of interlinked values and expectations."

This report, published by Equimundo and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), seeks to lay out the case for including boys in efforts to promote gender equality and prevent child, early, and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU). It also presents a review of existing interventions, analysing strengths and gaps, and concrete guidance on best practices, including reference to existing tools and case studies, for practitioners who intend to work at the intersection of boyhood programming and child marriage prevention and response. The purpose of the paper is to support implementers seeking to include a gender-transformative approach in their work on child marriage prevention and response. The analysis has a specific focus on boyhood, with an emphasis on early adolescence (10-14), as this is considered a crucial stage of boys' socialisation into adulthood and a key time when gender norms take shape and crystalise.

As Equimundo and UNFPA explain, "While child marriage predominantly affects adolescent girls, solid evidence has shown that working only with girls is not enough to end the practice. Many boys and young men too face pressures to marry early, or to marry girls who are children, and play a key role in embodying and reproducing harmful gender norms that drive child marriage. Yet boys and men are scarcely mentioned in the literature on child marriage, even in connection with unintended pregnancy."

Programmes selected for inclusion in the review had to be working to delay child marriage or support individuals married as children AND engage boys and men. So, programmes that worked to advance gender equality or sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) but do not explicitly link it with child marriage were not included. The 26 interventions (or sets of interventions) that were selected by the authors then had to fulfil at least one of the following conditions:
 

• Show positive or promising results in addressing harmful gender norms and/or in delaying marriage;
• Include a well-documented analysis of potential reasons for programme failure or of challenges; 
   
• Use at least some key elements of a gender-transformative approach; and
• Work or have taken steps to work across more than one level of the social-ecological framework - either directly or through partnerships.

The report lists the programmes and offers further information on each programme in an Appendix.

In an effort to frame the review and select and organise the extensive evidence, the report highlights three major themes, which are discussed in some detail:
 

1. The social construction and institutionalisation of gender norms;
2. The meaning and relevance of sexuality; and
3. The case of child grooms.

Per the report, together, these three themes permit the inclusion of most topics and research relevant to CEFMU and masculinities. Gender norms and sexuality together cover the social, economic, and relationship/psychological dimensions of child marriage and the points where the life trajectories of boys and girls intersect. To be able to understand why and how to effectively and deeply engage boys to address child marriage, it is essential to explore its root causes, which in large part relate to how gender norms, especially those related to sexuality, are constructed, institutionalised, and sustained. The analysis of these three themes covers formal (institutionalised) and informal (norms, practices) structures. In addition, the focus on boys as early marriers examines the personal experiences of this subset of grooms/husbands.

The analysis of the selected programmes highlights a number of insights and trends related to programme strategies and focus, as well as strengths and gaps. In brief, they are:

• Examples of good practices and promising gender-transformative work with boys and young men exist. Nevertheless, there are few gender-transformative programmes that are working with young adolescent boys to advance gender equality AND address child marriage. Lessons can however be learned from gender-transformative programming that does not explicitly address child marriage.
• Most programmes in this review focus primarily on the individual and family and/or community level. The review found very few well-documented initiatives tackling the key institutions that spread and sustain patriarchal values and norms at a societal level.
• Most selected programmes have adopted an approach that promotes introspection, which is key to gender transformation at the individual, interpersonal, and community levels. The analysis found that a significant number of selected programmes seek to bring awareness, facilitate discussion, and instigate reflection around issues that are essential for the prevention of and response to child marriage. Issues include: patriarchy, gender, and power; masculinities, socialisation, and transitions from boyhood to manhood; the impact on the gendered distribution of family responsibilities, parenting, and interpersonal relationships, including in sexuality; the impact on violent behaviours and the expression of emotions; and SRHR for unmarried and married adolescents.
• Providing gender-transformative training to programme facilitators seems to be a good practice that can contribute to programme success. The analysis found that several programmes featured in this review have invested in the need for strong training for facilitators in avoiding reinforcing harmful gender norms by questioning their own personal attitudes and adherence to collective beliefs and behaviours. One example is CARE's Tipping Point programme, which developed a comprehensive training package to support staff in embarking on a journey of self-reflection around topics such as sexuality, gender, caste, and various group identities and how these elements relate to power.
• A number of programmes have invested in analysing what they have learned from programme successes, challenges, and failures. The paper highlights the following learnings:
  • Gender-transformative work requires sustained efforts across different levels of the social-ecological model.
  • Programmes working with boys have to make the strategic decision about whether to adopt a single-sex or mixed-sex model.
  • Practical aspects of implementation such as programme acceptance, participation, and retention remain key considerations for success.
  • Programme evaluations are inconsistent in outcomes measured, quality, and availability, posing challenges in comparing programme effectiveness.
  • While many programmes remain small scale, some have been exploring and testing strategies to reach the greatest number.
  • Many findings of this review echo existing studies from the SRHR field.

The report offers eight recommendations for supporting the design, funding, and implementation of gender-transformative programmes that seek to address the root causes of child marriage: 

1. Establish gender-synchronised engagement of boys as a core component of programmes: As explained in the report, shifting the unequal distribution of power and resources between women and men, girls and boys cannot happen without programmes that are thoroughly designed to support boys early on to become actors in that transformation. Programme designers should dedicate the same level of attention and effort (as they do with girl-centred efforts) to boys' engagement right from the start and approach it as a core component of their programmes. 

2. Set up partnerships to work at all levels of the social-ecological model, with particular attention to institutional change: In order for boys to practice new behaviours and support them in becoming actors of change for gender equality, it is considered essential to link these activities with efforts to tackle structural drivers of gender inequality and child marriage across the family, community, and especially institutional spheres and across local, national, regional, and international levels. To encourage a focus on the institutional level, the report offers a list of resources to support work with governments, parliamentarians, the media, and religious institutions and leaders.  

3. Develop and secure support for programmes that privilege deep, long-term, and multilevel work: Many programmes selected for this review identified the timeframe of interventions as a challenge when it comes to changing harmful gender norms and transforming masculinities. For this reason, it is essential to plan for long-term interventions and allow enough efforts to secure buy-in from influential community members to support participation and retention.

4. Build a deep understanding of adolescent boys' profiles and tailor programmes to them: As part of an organisation's situation analysis, the report recommends making sure to include a robust gender analysis to understand how patriarchal values and harmful gender norms manifest in an organisation's programme area. It offers a number of areas that research should focus on. For example, programme staff should develop specific research questions to understand adolescent boys fully in all their diversity - how they understand and experience masculinity and how it impacts their lives, aspirations, needs, beliefs, and behaviours and those of the girls and women around them. 

5. Address taboos around sexuality: As sexuality is a central topic when it comes to harmful gender norms related to child marriage, programme designers seeking to prevent child marriage and/or mitigate its harmful consequences must talk about sexuality in their interventions. The report highlights a number of important points to consider here. For example, talking about sexuality with adolescents should go beyond bodily changes, family planning, sexually transmitted infections, and contraception and should also include topics such as sexual attraction and pleasure, sexual identity, difference between sex and gender (including gender identity), and sexuality and intimacy in a relationship.

6. Challenge the status quo through gender-transformative staff training and programme design: To equip programme teams to address taboos around sexuality with young people and become advocates and actors of the movement toward gender equality, it is essential to invest time and resources in training them.

7. Help build the evidence on boys' engagement: Among the programmes reviewed, it is hard to identify a consensus on strategic and practical programmatic decisions in areas such as minimum or ideal programme duration, grouping by age when working at the individual level, and best practices for working in partnership across all levels of the social-ecological model. Therefore, programme designers developing new programmes in this area should make sure monitoring and evaluation is fully integrated from the start.

8. Advocate for domestic and international investment to help fill the biggest gaps: The biggest needs identified in this review are: better geographical distribution of efforts, consistent and rigorous evaluation of interventions, more funding for gender-transformative staff training, more evidence on effective approaches to working at the institutional level, and programmes supporting child grooms. 

Editor's note: On February 22 2023, the Global Boyhood Initiative - coordinated by Equimundo (Formerly Promundo-US) in partnership with Plan International and with core global partner Gillette - launched a webinar series whose first topic was "Engaging Boys to Promote Gender Equality and Prevent Child Marriage". Click on the video below to watch the recording, which is also available, along with slides, here.