Leave no-one behind: Using mobile cinema to address social norms underpinning child marriage in rural Pakistan

Summary:

The More than Brides Alliance is working to end child marriages in rural communities in Pakistan. The issue of childmarriage has its knot imbedded in religion, culture, practice, social norms and construct. The areas where MTBA is working has higher number of child marriage incidents with limited or no mobility for women. Women and girls are not allowed to move freely and to take part in social activities coupled with no power on decision making. They are not connected to the internet and depend on their families for any kind of information, including information on their rights. The More than Brides Alliance programme has used mobile cinema to reach the heartland, the small towns and villages across conservative rural areas where CM is most prevalent. Mobile cinema sessions were hosted by the community :with the involvement of men. The films focused on addressing the issue of early child marriages by showing alternative path ways, and were followed by discussion on importance of education and economic empowerment for women and girls. We have reached 6000 people with the mobile cinema in 2 districts of Sindh and 2 districts of Punjab. We found that mobile cinema can play a positive role in challenging social norms underpinning gender inequality and child marriages. The impact of these interventions was measured by the university of Oxford using Randomized control trial in the months of November and December 2019, so we will be able to show the results at the SBCC conference.

Background/Objectives:

The More Than Brides Alliance is implemented in Mali, Niger, Malawi, India and Pakistan. In all countries use Edutainment combined with on-the-ground community education and mobilization. We have learned that Edutainment can provoke changes in attitudes, beliefs and behaviour on complex topics like gender values and norms, social roles, girls' education, family planning, child marriages and many other themes. Given these previous experiences, the conservative context in Pakistan and the fact that women are not mobile, we decided to bring mobile cinema to the most rural areas and people's houses; providing an accessible and safe space to talk.

Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:

An in-depth qualitative social norm research indicated the important role mothers have in decision-making processes towards marriage. Based on that 2 different scripts were developed and tested with audiences in Punjab and Sindh to meet with the specific contexts.. Then the adventure started: the mobile cinema was shown in 80 villages, during 6 months. We were confronted with power cuts, harvesting periods, small scale floods and a volatile security situation. Nevertheless, awaiting the results of the aforementioned RCT*, we can say that mobile cinema has proven to be an effective and novel way to bring positive change in behavior of communities related to delaying marriages . According to a small impact survey we conducted discussions on child marriage were started in households where these had never taken place before. Also, feedback from the targeted audiences states they enrolled their daughters in school after having watched the mobile cinema.

Results/Lessons Learned:

The mobile cinema interventions combined with group discussions aimed to sensitize communities to end child marriage, empower women and girls and increase their participation in decision-making. The project has so far reached over 1000 women and girls and their communities of Sindh and Punjab improving understanding of human and women's rights and increasing support of husbands and community leaders to end child marriage. This was only possible because of: Firstly, the highly inclusive nature of the design and implementation; dialogues had already started well ahead of interventions, sessions were planned together with village leaders and local and known actors were chosen. Secondly the strong connection between the mobile cinema narrative and the other projects interventions focusing on providing viable alternatives to marriage to girls and women in the shape of education, livelihood and skills. And thirdly the careful design of the script, based on the qualitative social norm research.

Discussion/Implications for the Field:

The intervention reaches out to girls and women directly, but this is impossible if the head of the family (mainly men) is not involved. It's imperative to screen the videos by informing well in advance. With agreement and availability of women the screening should take place as mostly women and girls are overburdened with household chores and men do not allow them to participate if they deem necessary. The intervention requires a backup plan and/or investments in solar energy-based projections in case of power cuts; these have often disrupted planning and exhausted staff involved in the mobile cinema projections.

Abstract submitted by: 

Saskia Van Veen

Katinka Moonen

Wasim Durrani