The ABCs of SBC

SBC in Ending Child Marriage

• UNICEF SBC • Season 3 • Episode 1

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 24:20

Every three seconds, a girl under 18 is married somewhere in the world. While global rates of child marriage have declined, millions of girls continue to face pressure to marry before they are ready, often shaped by a complex mix of social norms, economic realities, family expectations, and gender inequality. Laws matter, but as practitioners working on the issue know, legislation alone is rarely enough to change deeply rooted behaviours.

In this episode, Qali explores what it takes to address child marriage through a social and behaviour change lens. From Nepal's Rupantaran programme, which helps girls build confidence, critical thinking skills, and aspirations beyond marriage, to Zambia's Coaching Boys into Men initiative, which challenges harmful ideas about masculinity, this conversation examines how change happens when entire systems begin to shift. Along the way, you'll hear stories of girls, boys, parents, religious leaders, and communities reimagining what is possible for the next generation.

You'll hear from:

  • Humberto Jaime, Chief of Social and Behaviour Change, UNICEF Nepal
  • Pragya Shah Karki, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF Nepal
  • Edwin Mumba, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF Zambia

Resources:

The views and opinions expressed by the contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of UNICEF or any entities they represent. The content here is for information purposes only.

The ABCs of SBC is hosted by Qali Id and produced and developed by UNICEF in partnership with Common Thread.

Check out UNICEF’s latest publication on Social and Behaviour Change, Hidden in Plain Sight, a celebration of the everyday heroes on the frontlines of public health outbreaks, or the first publication, Why don’t you just behave! For more information about UNICEF SBC, check out the programme guidance.

We care about what you think — you can share your thoughts on the podcast using this feedback form. For all other inquiries, please contact sbc@unicef.org.

Qali:

year globally, a girl under 18 years gets married every three seconds. By the end of this episode, that's more than 480 children. Children who may be forced to leave school, give up opportunities, and take on adult responsibilities far too soon. And while child marriage is a global issue, its impact is felt acutely in countries like Nepal and Zambia. In Nepal, one in three girls are married before they turn 18. In Zambia, it's close to one in four. And just a generation ago, nearly half of all Zambian and Nepali girls were married before their 18th birthday. In both countries, millions of girls and women are living with the consequences of a decision that was made for them before they were old enough to make it themselves. And yet, there has also been real progress. So the question this episode is trying to answer is not only why does child marriage still happen, but also what works in ending it, and what does it take to change something this deeply rooted? I'm Qali Id, and this is the ABCs of SBC, a UNICEF podcast where we explore how social and behavior change can help us confront some of the most urgent and complex issues facing children today. In today's episode, I spoke with three people working to end child marriage in Nepal and Zambia. Let's start with Humberto Jaime, the chief of social and behavioral change at UNICEF Nepal, and a question he has been struggling with for a long time.

Humberto:

The question is if child marriage is an issue to address or is a consequence of a series of interconnected issues? Coming from national and international analysis, we have came up to eight main behavioral challenges faced in Nepal across sectors. Harmful social norms and traditional norms and practices, lack of uptake of essential services, misinformation and mistrust, limited parent and caregiver knowledge and skills, exclusion and discrimination. Limited participation on empowerment and violence and resistance to climate friendly behaviors. Is child marriage an issue or maybe a consequence or one of the consequence of the combination of all these other eight behavioral challenges happening at the same time and affecting at the same time, possibly at the same girl, at the same adolescent.

Qali:

That reframing matters because if child marriage is a symptom and not the root cause, then treating it in isolation will never be enough. This is where social and behavior change comes in.

Humberto:

What we're doing is addressing child marriage, not as a isolated issue. It is connected with violence in family or the voices that are not here. It and the women that are not empowered,, to have a role as decision makers, and to express, their priorities and their concerns in the society. And it's connected with and still exist in some very rooted issue such as the caste system or socioeconomical barrier. So everything at the same time is interconnected. So from SBC, the question is what is our role? Are we going everywhere, every single household to tell people what to do don't get married or go to the school or get vaccinated, or is our role more in influencing the context, promoting a supporting environment, including service improvements, supporting supportive policies strengthening systems, and on the compliance of a legislation. And then all together building an environment that can be supportive and can promote that, at the level of communities and individuals, positive practices can be adopted. Or harmful social norms can be tackled and overcome.

Qali:

As Humberto suggests, behavior is shaped by much more than individual choices. Child marriage, for example, is influenced by laws and policies, but also by social norms, economic realities, and community expectations. To understand how these forces interact in Nepal, I spoke with UNICEF's child protection specialist, Pragya Karki.

Pragya:

We have one of the most advanced legal frameworks when it comes to child marriage. Almost one in three girls is still married before 18, and almost around 14% of the girls age 15 to 19 are already pregnant. So you can see there's really a gap between what the law says and what society believes and practices. So I believe that child marriage persists because it is not only accepted, but it's expected in many communities. Families they often believe they're doing the right thing by protecting their daughters through marriages because it's again, related to honor and controlling sexuality and all of that. They also believe that they're securing their future. So all of these factors are contributing to child marriage. And also what's important is that these beliefs are not functioning in isolation. These beliefs are reinforced by economic hardships, so it's linked with poverty and economic difficulties. It's also linked with gender norms and community pressure. I believe that this is why child marriage is still a major issue faced by adolescent girls in Nepal.

Qali:

Changing those deeply rooted beliefs and social pressures is no easy task. Pragya leads UNICEF's program on ending child marriage and has spent years working on exactly that challenge, helping close the gap between what the law says and what actually happens in communities

Pragya:

Rupantaran, which translates into. Transformation in English is a social and behavior change intervention, but really focusing on empowering adolescent girls with social and financial skills. And it recognizes that the child marriage is not just an individual decision. It's a collective behavior shaped by norms, relationship, and power dynamics. When the girls enter the program, they often have limited knowledge and about their rights and health. They also have low confidence and voice and a belief that major decisions such as education, like marriage, and also who to get married to, are really not hers to make. but through the ruan, she gets life skills. She gains knowledge and skills around critical thinking, confidence, and more importantly, her aspirations begin to shift because that's where the program is trying to make the dent. She starts to see alternative to marriage. To dependency and also begin to believe that those alternatives can be achieved.

Qali:

Pragya told me about a girl from Western Nepal, 17 years old, shy, withdrawn, seeing marriage as her only pathway, and almost at the point of getting married.

Pragya:

Through the program, she didn't just gain the knowledge. Her mindset also changed. She began to see herself differently and also started seeing what is possible in her life. She learned about gender equality, , Communication and goal setting through the program, and also started to imagine a future beyond child marriage. And what's powerful is that the change did not stop with her. She became the, became a facilitator within the program, a peer leader and a role model. She now leads sessions with other girls and especially with parents because she's really powerful in engaging and having that discussion with adults essentially becoming an agent of change in her own community. I believe that her story becomes a tool to shift norms. When other girls and parents see someone like her choosing differently. It begins to challenge what is considered normal or expected. You can see that change, like a girl can do this.

Qali:

But change is not linear, and Pragya was honest about the complexity. During a recent project visit to a province bordering India, one conversation with a girl has continued to stick with her.

Pragya:

She said what age did you get married? I said, 22. "But you did get married eventually." So that's what all girls in Nepal have to eventually do. You have to get married, so even if you get married at 22 or at 18 or 16, how does it make a difference? And she said with the marriage. She was able to gain independence because she was controlled in her household. She was not allowed to interact with friends. She didn't have economic independence. And now with marriage, her husband is a migrant worker. And so the migrant worker was sending money to the household and she had some access to finance and she could spend on herself. So she felt empowered.

Qali:

That tension is one of the hardest things in norm change work. When a harmful norm is also providing something real, like economic relief, a sense of status, an escape from a controlling household, you can't just argue against it. You have to offer something better, and that means working not just with girls, but with the people who shape the

world around them:

parents, religious leaders, and boys

Pragya:

so one of the strategy that we have taken is to really work through the alliance of religious leaders rather than, working through an outsider or through government system to influence these religious leaders. We work with the Interfaith Alliance and what we've done is we've actually, sat with them co-created a content, like how they want to design the program. What are the key messages that we want to deliver? What is our religious text saying, and what are the issues that needs to be hit? These religious leaders are spontaneously raising information about child marriage, about value of girl child. And also, what's really important is denouncing some of the, patriarchal wrong because in our religion, the religious leaders are mostly men. And I think it's across the world. When a man who brings a lot of power in the society is talking about patriarchy and challenges them, it becomes very powerful. So that's how we work with the religious leader.

Qali:

The program also runs intergenerational dialogues with men and boys, creating space for fathers and sons to have conversations they might otherwise never have. Pragya shared an emotional moment from one of those sessions

Pragya:

I would like to give an example from another region, like a hilly region from Nepal where in the discussion there was a father and a son from the same family. Attending the intergenerational dialogue and the daughter of the family was in Ru PanIN program. And the son when he was having that discussion, he just said I feel envious of my sister because through the Ru PanIN program. She's able to have that conversation with my parents. But as a son I do not have a. Program like Rupa, neither my social expectation or my family expectation allows me to have that kind of candid discussion with my father because I'm expected to agree to whatever my father is saying. So he was actually almost in tears telling his father saying that sometimes, I don't. Feel comfortable on what the decisions that you're making, but because I'm the boy of the family, I believe that I need to support you or I need to, sustain the values of the family. So I feel very pressured. And he just thanked the father because the father was having that discussion with the boy saying that, okay, what are the issues? How do you feel the patriarchal norms is influencing your behavior? Your attitude. And the son was able to share his feeling and I just felt that moment was so emotional and heart touching when the father and the. Child, the son was able to connect they didn't have any bad intention they wanted to do good of. For the family and for the child, their daughter as well. But the approach was different. They didn't realize that especially the father, he didn't realize that his behavior was having negative impact on the son as well as on the daughter. So those kind of reflections coming from the fathers and even young boys I felt was really heart touching.

Qali:

Now let's go to Zambia, where Edwin Mumba has been working on ending child marriage since 2016. As child protection specialist with UNICEF, Edwin's work covers communities, government, civil society, adolescent boys, and girls themselves. I started by asking him about football.

Edwin:

So Zambia is a great footballing nation, I must say. It's like second to religion, as some people call it. communities gather in numbers, hundreds and all that from far off places they would gather for, simple tournaments like maybe around Independence Day, around Christmas Day and all that.

Qali:

That sense of pride, identity, and community gathering around football is actually the entry point for one of Edwin's key programs, using sport to create spaces where boys can be reached. But first, I needed to understand what those boys are being taught elsewhere.

Edwin:

Boys, when they come of age, you're talking about around the age of 12, 13 thereabout, they are secluded from the rest of the community and they're initiated into what is locally known as the nao. It's traditional dance where you use the mascarad, but in this context, it is also the time when boys um, initiated into the cultural practices of their tribe. It's also a time when. The place of a boy, the place of a man in society, in the community is imparted into the boys. When you come out of the initiation practice as a boy, you are now a fully grown up man. Teachers, female teachers have reported, being undermined by the boys who come from the initiation practices. 'cause they feel they're now grown up, they're men and a woman is less compared to a boy and all that. So there are a lot of these gender related norms which undervalue the girl child. And we felt that we cannot win. We cannot, progress if the boy child is left behind, particularly around issues of masculinity, so the Coaching Boys to Main program engages boys around this time from the ages of 12, 13 to 17 there about. The program basically challenges the boys about what it means to be a man. To be a boy does not mean to look down upon your sister, upon your mother, upon girls. It means to be taking part in household chores, it means having respectful relationships with everyone.

Qali:

Edwin went to the western part of Zambia to assess the program's impact and met a boy whose story captures what that shift looks like from the inside

Edwin:

one boy stood up, particularly and told his own story in that part of the country. And he was talking about what he saw as a change in his own life. So he said, before when I went to this cultural practice or to the initiation ceremony, I was taught what to be how to be a boy or how to be a man. That a woman is like secondary and all that, you're not supposed to talk to them. But after the participating in the 12 sessions with the coaching boys in Ate, I see myself as a different person. I am now , advocating with other boys who have passed through the cultural practice. The value of being respectful towards others, the value of being respectful towards women, towards the girls, and not to be bullying. So the boy has become like an advocate, among his peers . Challenging some of the norms that have been held to be like this is how we are supposed to live. And if you get off these or you act contrary to the social and gender norms within the community, you are not a boy enough.

Qali:

And the change didn't stay inside the program. Parents began to notice. Some came to school unprompted

Edwin:

during my monitoring of the program in the western part of the country, I was told by the teachers that actually. We had parents come to the school themselves and expressing their gratitude to the teachers for the behavioral change that they're seeing in their children. One of the changes that parents observed was the change in performance in school, and also just the good reports that they're receiving. But more importantly, in terms of how their child relates with others. And an example in a place in Senga district, where this boy was kept by a grandmother. The father and mother had passed away some years back. The grandmother came to school to give a report where they have these regular meetings with the parents and the teachers. And in that meeting, that's where the grandmother narrated on how she had noticed change in him just in even at household level, how he was able to participate in household. Chores and also language in terms of language that is used towards the girls in the village, in the community. And she wanted to find out about the sustainability of the program, the ideas of taking it to other schools, and also the ideas of continuing the program even after maybe the global program or the UNICEF support.

Qali:

Back in Nepal, Humberto reflected on what it takes for a system to keep moving in the right direction and what threatens to pull it back.

Humberto:

The more access to education, knowledge, information, and at the same time, the more access to supportive services, job opportunities and an environment that allows society to progress. Exercise their human rights. I think that creating these spaces are going to be a critical to contribute to eradicate not only child marriage, violence against women. Drop of school, adoption of harm, uh, practices. The risk here is that every time can go back if we continue looking issues as isolated issues. Belonging to health or education or child protection. It's everyone together at the same time with a system strengthening approach making sure that the same girl. Same boy can have access to the vaccines to the school to the knowledge and to the job opportunities so they can outline and lead their present and their future in the way they consider the best.

Qali:

Pragya, when asked what she would want practitioners to take away from Nepal's experience, came back to the thing that matters most about how we measure change.

Pragya:

Change takes time. And it is only possible when you work at multiple levels simultaneously. So if you just work on girls empowerment or shifting norms among parents or religious leaders, that would not work. So you have to combine or work at multiple levels. But perhaps most importantly, she's changing what is seen as possible for girls in her community. She is the role model in her community and other girls are seeing what's possible for girls in the community. Shifting collective imagination of what girls' life can be is really important.

Qali:

What struck me across these three conversations is that none of them were talking about defeating tradition or replacing one set of beliefs with another. They were talking about expanding what people can imagine. For a girl who has never seen another girl choose differently, for a boy who was taught that power means dominance, for a father who didn't realize that his silence was a decision. Child marriage declines when girls have options, when boys are offered a different story about what it means to be a man, when communities have the tools and the permission to reexamine norms they thought were fixed. That's the work. It's slow, it's multi-layered, and according to the people doing it, it's working. Thank you to Humberto Jaime, Pragya Karki, and Edwin Mumba for joining me on today's episode of The ABCs of SBC. If you'd like to learn more about the Rupantaran program in Nepal, the Coaching Boys to Men program, or the UNFPA UNICEF Global Program to End Child Marriage, all the information is in the show notes. Please share this episode with anyone working on gender, child protection, or social and behavior change. Until next time, I'm Qali Id.