Child marriage is a violation of human rights, impedes sustainable development, and often has lasting negative impacts on health, education, and access to income-generation opportunities.
The More Than Brides Alliance (MTBA), which includes Save the Children, Oxfam Novib, the Population Council, and Simavi, provides alternatives to child marriage to mitigate its impact on already married girls by enhancing access to education, economic opportunities, and child protection services.
The Population Council evaluates the MTBA’s programs in India, Malawi, Mali, and Niger. These programs aim to:
- Empower at-risk and already married adolescent girls with life skills
- Increase comprehensive sexuality education and access to youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services
- Challenge and change the social norms that sustain harmful practices
- Influence legal and policy frameworks to curb child marriage
As the MTBA’s evaluation and learning partner, the Council conducts baseline, midline, and endline surveys with women and girls ages 12–19 in each of the four countries (approximately 5,000 in total; sample sizes vary by country). Evaluations aim to:
- Assess the impact of the intervention
- Better document the primary drivers of and processes surrounding early marriage in each context
- Examine factors [GS1] that may have an influence on early marriages in particular settings (e.g., migration in West Africa)
