HER CHOICE - Building Child Marriage-Free Communities

BUILDING CHILD
MARRIAGE-FREE
COMMUNITIES

Each year, 12 million girls get married before the age of 18. Her Choice aims to build child marriage-free communities where each girl is free to decide if, when and whom she marries. Where this will be Her Choice.

OUR IMPACT
ON CHILD MARRIAGE

After 3 years of programme implementation, research shows a decreasing trend in child marriage in the Her Choice working areas. Also, girls have more knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights and speak out more about those subjects in community meetings.

INCREASING
GIRLS' CONTROL

Her Choice uses 6 intervention strategies that are based on evidence which shows that the most consistent results of targeting child marriages are achieved by fostering information, skills and networks for girls in combination with community mobilisation.

THE FACTS

every day 33,000 girls get married
when a girl marries young, the chance that she will also become pregnant young is high; this entails health problems for both the young mother and her baby.
girls who marry later, attain higher levels of education, fare better economically and raise healthier families
1 in 5 girls worldwide will marry before the age of 18 – this was 1 in 3 in the 1980s, so we’re on the right track: change is possible!

Zalissa’s choice

One out of two girls under the age of 18 must marry in Burkina Faso. The 14-year-old Zalissa sees another future. This is her story. This video is produced by Her Choice alliance member Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederland.