A 'girl' or a 'child'? Examing a Rights-Based Approach to Child Marriage through an Intersectionality/African Feminist Lens

Background and Purpose: The question 'Who is a child?' elicits diverse responses in numerous contexts. Despite many countries adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) classification of a child as 18 years and below, globally, many nations define a child based on the dominant cultures, social norms, religions, and traditions they abide by (Ruck et al., 2016; Sayi & Sibanda, 2018). In many societies and cultures, being born female exposes the girl child to many disadvantages associated with discrimination and violence at every stage of her development, especially as she transitions into adulthood (Diamond-Smith et al., 2008).

This study aimed to understand what frameworks, theories, or lenses stakeholders use to implement interventions to end child marriage in Malawi, primarily converging on multi-sectoral collaboration action between multilevel stakeholders. In addition, the study examined the 'Rights Based' approach to girl child marriage through the intersectional/African feminist lens, precisely how child marriage positions the girl at the margins of gender, age, and sometimes culture. This paper advocates for the joint analysis of child rights and women's rights movements on how gender and age interact to marginalize girls to combat gender bias and adult dominance in implementing interventions to end child marriage.

Methods: Driven by the 'Qualitative Methods in Implementation Science Framework,' and purposive sampling, this study analyzed 22 semi-structured interviews, 18 archival analyses, and field notes. The theoretical lenses of African Feminism, Human Rights-Based Analysis, and implementation science guided the interviews and data analysis. Data were coded using Dedoose software, and thematic analysis was used as a constant comparative method by deriving basic concepts from data and comparing them with other data to facilitate meaningful categorization.

Findings: Findings showed that stakeholders were implementing child marriage interventions using two main frameworks/lenses: child-focused, led by the UNCRC; or gender-focused, driven by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), resulting in a restricted and fragmented strategy for preventing child marriage. Further, stakeholders' allegiance to the UNCRC and CEDAW affected intervention implementation, particularly in the local context where interdisciplinary programming was essential to success. Finally, since most human rights instruments are Western-based, cultural traditions were ignored, violating core human rights and prompting an ongoing controversy on individual versus collective rights.

Conclusions and Implications: Despite international legal instruments being in place for many decades, violence uniquely targeting the girl child is prevalent on every continent, exerted by every social and economic class, and endorsed to varying degrees by every form of government, every major religion, and every communal or familial structure (Rafferty, 2013). By ignoring how gender or adult dominance subjugates girls, international human rights treaties such as the UNCRC and the CEDAW permit an entire form of dominance to evade girls' well-being in child marriage. Understanding that the battle to end child marriage can be won by recognizing the vulnerability of the girl child and the ability of child and women's rights activists to work together to provide the protections that girls deserve.