King's College London

The latest episode of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (SRHM) podcast, which features Dr Aisha Hutchinson and Katrina Kiss of the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, and Janna Metzler, advocates for a shift in research priorities to accelerate the prevention of child marriage.

Of their various findings from the report, Dr Hutchinson emphasised that importantly, regional distinctiveness must not be lost in global attempts to develop a child marriage agenda. The study aims to give concrete recommendations to practitioners, academics and policy makers setting priorities for research in the MENA region which consider the nature and history of the region, recognising the specific conditions that many communities are affected by, such as conflict and humanitarian crises. It is particularly important that we use research knowledge from the region to prevent child marriage increasing amongst those currently most acutely affected by conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.

One of the key takeaways from the episode were that almost half of the respondents said they faced difficulty incorporating child marriage research into their day-to-day work, struggling to translate research findings into concrete actions and policy.

Dr Hutchinson also suggests that addressing the gap in the knowledge about the circumstances specific to girls growing up in the MENA region can inform more comprehensive policy in combatting child marriage.

Katrina Kiss, postgraduate researcher at King’s, stresses that ‘girls are not a homogenous group’ drawing specific attention to the critical need for chid marriage research that includes attention to girls affected by disabilities. For example, the study found that 95% of practitioners said they would like to understand how to support girls with disabilities at risk of experiencing child marriage who may otherwise slip through the cracks. Prioritising these gaps with an intersectional lens will allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the girls in the region.

Kiss also suggests that beyond the need for more in-depth and focused research, research needs to be digestible, offered in various formats that is directly useful to policy and practice, to avoid an overwhelm that may create a barrier to accessing findings that could be crucial to improving girls’ lives. She says alternative formats such as podcasts could be a more accessible way to provide research findings.

The researchers outlined that the next steps from the study include developing an inclusive and participatory regional child marriage agenda, giving praise to the Regional Action Forum (RAF) for commissioning a package of work based on the findings from the study, stressing the importance of regional distinctiveness and unpacking some of the more surprising findings into socio-economic factors contributing to child marriage.

Listen to the podcast here. You can also catch up with other episodes in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (SRHM) podcast here.