“I had to face social stigma for marrying off late. We had no access to information. There were no schools or any other opportunities. In such a situation, the law regarding child marriage was beyond our imagination. We only had the option to follow our ancient rituals and be involved in agriculture,” says Suwa.
She further adds, “Now, I have realized that I lost my babies due to early pregnancy. There were no one to advise us that child marriage and childbearing is life-threatening to both mothers and her babies,” says Suwa.
Suwa, despite her old age, is an activist who walks around in her community and narrates her story. She advocates about the adverse effects of early marriage and motivates others to marry only after reaching a suitable age.
Likewise, Amar Bahadur Shahi, 45, of Sinjha Rural Municipality-1 is also one of the activists who has been advocating against child marriage. Being a child groom himself, he is aware of the challenges that a young groom has to encounter and now is committed to prevent child marriage of future generation.
Amar got married at an early age of 15. “I had to shoulder the responsibilities of generating income for the family. In an environment where there were not many opportunities, I worked hard so that my family could have two times meal every day. It was during such times that I realized the unprecedented situation that child marriage brings in our lives. Now, I am determined to marry off my children only after reaching the age specified by the law of the country. In addition to this, I am also committed to stop child, early and forced marriage in my community,” says Amar.
Suwa and Amar are the representative characters who themselves were once a child bride and groom; now advocates to end Child, Early and Forced marriage (CEFM) in their communities. Plan International Nepal with the support of its partner organizations have been conducting various programs to raise awareness in the communities about harmful traditional practices. Suwa and Amar learnt about consequences of child marriage, child rights, importance of education after attending Preventing Child, Early and Forced Marriage (PCEFM) project. They go door to door to ensure that all the children, especially girls' children receive education and are not forced to marry early.
Plan International Nepal has implemented the PCEFM project in 10 local levels of Jumla, Kalikot and Bardiya districts with the objective of reducing the prevalence rate of child marriages to support the government’s commitment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2030. The overall goal of the project is to end child marriage so that all the children enjoy their rights to reach their full potential. The objectives of the prorgamme is achieved through various programmes like keeping girls in school, access to quality information about Sexual and Reproductive Rights, engaging Champions of Change as an influencer in the communities as an advocate to reduce the child marriage.
The project was successful to reach 7,214 participants. Likewise, it has prevented 28 cases of child marriages in different communities. In addition to this, at the Federal Level, we have been doing regular engagement with parliamentarians through Human Rights, Law and Justice Committee and Woman and Social Committee to influence timely promulgation of revised version of national strategy and cost action plan in preventing CEFM. Moreover, we have been also engaging in child rights monitoring through the Universal Periodic Reporting process and UNCRC reporting process with wider CSO engagement at national and local level for prevention of CEFM.
