Tackling the Taboo: Sexuality and Gender-Transformative Programmes to End Child, Early and Forced Marriages and Unions

"Control and regulation of sexuality - in particular adolescent girls' sexuality - is a critical and often unaddressed manifestation of gender inequality that exists in different cultural contexts and communities around the world."

"Tackling the Taboo" focuses on the need to address patriarchal control of adolescent girls' sexuality in the fight against child, early, and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU), and highlights the role played by gender-transformative approaches (GTAs). The report presents findings from a review of 23 organisations that work at the intersection of child marriage and sexuality, and includes 3 case studies that feature the work of grassroots organisations working in politically and culturally conservative contexts: Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH) in Kenya, International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights (INCRESE) in Nigeria, and The YP Foundation in India. The report is intended as a learning tool for practitioners, a guide for future research opportunities, a call to action for funders, and an advocacy tool for engaging in dialogue with policymakers and leaders.

The CEFM and Sexuality Programs Working Group explains that, in places where patriarchal gender norms are strictly enforced, people, especially girls and women, are constrained in their freedom to express their sexuality. Control of the female body is an important focal point of patriarchy - both contributing to and reinforced within CEFMUs. Thus, child marriage is an example of how women's and girls' life choices - down to the most intimate: of if, whom, and when to marry - are taken from them and controlled by others.

As detailed in the report, CEFMU "plays a key role in reinforcing patriarchy and gender inequality, upholding traditional gender norms and roles that limit girls' and women's autonomy and aspirations, including regarding their bodies and sexuality. CEFMUs are not equal partnerships: girls' and women's sexuality, reproductive choices and mobility remain under surveillance and scrutiny, and any deviation from the dominant gender norms is severely penalised. Girls are denied consent and choice, as well as pleasure in relation to sexuality. Therefore, control of the female body is an important focal point of patriarchy - both contributing to and reinforced" by CEFMU.

While there is a growing awareness of the linkages between sexuality, power, and child marriage, the Working Group stresses that too few programmes aiming to reduce and end child marriage actually address the issue of sexuality in their work. One approach to the issue of CEFMU is GTAs, which critically examine and address the roots of power relations that underpin gender inequality. These approaches encourage critical awareness of gender roles and norms, promote equitable positions of girls and women in society, challenge the distribution of resources and allocation of duties between men and women, and/or address the power relationships between girls and women and others in the community, such as service providers or traditional leaders.

Key elements of GTAs for CEFMU programming:

• Sexuality curricula: gender-sensitive, context-specific, flexible, and relatable - Addressing the control of adolescent sexuality from a rights framework that includes issues such as consent, choice, and pleasure is very challenging in many contexts. Many organisations and programmes in this review support participants to feel more comfortable speaking about sexuality, work to dispel notions of "normal–abnormal", and move away from feelings of guilt or judgment. Maturity, responsibility, consent, mutuality, and respect were touched upon by all programmes.
• Girls as agents of change: Centring their participation, leadership, and perspectives - Girls' ability to speak up for their own rights played a major part in the achievement of some of the organisations' results; once they asserted their own rights, it was generally easier for others, such as their parents, to support their decisions. However, strong support networks are needed, as well as strategies that include connecting participants and graduates with further learning and development opportunities. Many organisations noted that collectivising girls to take joint action has empowered them to voice their opinions and concerns at the community level and enabled them to jointly work out solutions to their problems.
• Working with men and boys to advance gender equality - Most approaches in this review not only involved, educated, and empowered men and boys, but also challenged them to understand and reject their privilege, and to hold other men and boys accountable for their actions towards girls and women. To achieve this, programmes tapped into young men's interests.
• Careful selection, training, and ongoing support of programme facilitators - For example, before a programme starts, some organisations conduct "values clarification" exercises to ensure whoever is delivering the curriculum fully embraces feminist principles of equal and inalienable rights.
• Addressing intersectionality: understanding the complexities and reaching the most vulnerable - CEFMU is often more prevalent amongst girls facing multiple deprivations; organisations incorporated cross-cutting topics in curricula, recruitment processes, and methodologies to reach the most marginalised communities.
• Grounding programmes in local contexts - Many organisations in this review undertook formative research ahead of programme design and implementation to understand the specific local drivers of CEFMU (including gender norms) and the ways in which sexuality is understood in a community. In addition, in-depth contextual analysis helped to gain community trust and develop tailored strategies.
• Collaborating with families, communities, and local stakeholders - Established networks and trust within communities were widely cited as indispensable assets in the implementation of activities that address sensitive issues. When working with adolescent girls, who seldom have a voice in the public sphere, it is critical to create an enabling community environment through community mobilisation and involvement. Parents and adult community members are gatekeepers to changing the social institutions that support CEFMU; securing their support from the outset in many cases helped reduce resistance. Similarly, working directly with religious leaders, local leaders, and opinion leaders from the community was found to be important.
• Innovative strategies for recruitment and retention - This review found storytelling, sports, art, and skill-building activities to be the main strategies used by the organisations reviewed to increase participation and community recognition. Dynamic platforms such as radio and multi-day events with activities such as competitions or debates also offered tools to engage young people directly with their communities and motivated their attendance. Finally, the organisations included strategies for their adolescent girls to build skills, overcome financial barriers, and gain access to resources.
• Monitoring, evaluation, and learning - Learning-focused monitoring and evaluation (M&E), including participatory approaches, provide a basis for course-correction of ongoing programmes. Smaller, grassroots organisations are often unable to take on quasi-experimental evaluations and so have developed other approaches to capture change. The need for greater support and capacity building for smaller organisations to conduct M&E was reported. Further development of and support in applying measures that capture norm-change beyond the age of marriage, including empowerment and agency over time, were also reported as necessary.
• Ensuring sustainability for social change - Achieving sustainability requires multi-pronged approaches and strategies, such as working with health and education ministries to institutionalise elements of programming and curricula and working with local political institutions to provide continued support for local programmes.

Recommendations for key actors:

The CEFM and Sexuality Programs Working Group argues that a comprehensive conceptual framework and common measures of success are needed to further understand and highlight the interdependence and linkages between sexuality, rights, autonomy, poverty, class, and caste in the context of CEFMU. Indicators measuring success beyond age of marriage, such as access to services and autonomous decision-making, can help unearth larger issues of gender inequality, choice, and consent. In addition, the group calls for more discussion, research, and guidance related to criminalisation of adolescent sexuality. Examples of recommendations for specific stakeholders (see the report for full details):

• Sample recommendation for programme implementers: Design, implement, monitor, and evaluate gender-transformative programming that addresses the root causes of CEFMU, including patriarchy and gender inequality, and control of girls' and women's sexuality.
• Sample recommendation for funders: Direct funding toward programming all levels, prioritising funding to multi-level and multi-sectorial programmes (with collectives, communities, and service provision at the local and regional levels) that address the relational aspect of sexuality.
• Sample recommendation for advocates and young activists: Empower girls to advocate for themselves, because strengthening girls' capacity to bring their messages to the public not only empowers them but is also a powerful tool for impacting decision-makers.

In-depth case studies:

1. Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH) - Kenya - with a focus on Our Bodies, Our Choices. This TICHAH programme centres around a manual, scenario cards, and educational posters that present all the information in English and Swahili. Ensuring that young people feel safe by crafting non-judgemental and supportive - "sacred" - spaces for them to share experiences is core to TICHAH's curriculum and guides most of their sexuality work.
2. International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights (INCRESE) - with a focus on its Girls Leadership Programme. The analytical and change model seeks to move girls from being passive recipients of services to being advocates for the rights of girls and women.
3. The YP Foundation - India - with a focus on Know Your Body, Know Your Rights (KYBKYR). This programme features a rights-based, stigma-free, and affirmative approach towards sexuality and sexuality education.

"Tackling the Taboo" is a response to the need to address the limited discussion of sexuality in the global discourse on CEFMU, which drew 41 local, national, and global programme implementers, government representatives, philanthropic foundations, researchers, and policy advocates in the field of adolescent development and sexuality to New York, United States (US) in March 2016. Coming out of this meeting, the CEFMU and Sexuality Programs Working Group was formed. The group commissioned this review to identify gender-transformative programmes that promote bodily integrity and girls' rights and development and result in normative change that helps end CEFMU.

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