By: Marissa Billowitz
I recently joined the Torchlight Collective, and I also hit another milestone - the twentieth anniversary of my first job in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). As I take a step back, I’ve been reflecting on what has changed and what hasn’t.
In terms of what’s changed, I’m thrilled that gender transformative approaches - what back in the day we called “gender equity promoting approaches” - have gained traction and are now an aspiration in many mainstream international non-governmental organizations working on SRHR and girls’ empowerment. Working toward gender equity is a good unto itself, as well as being the most effective way to address the root causes behind many unfavorable SRHR outcomes. Important research has shown that programs, such as comprehensive sexuality education, that address gender and power are more effective than those that do not. Sexuality in general is more widely acknowledged, including by the World Health Organization and, in some cases, pleasure is even embraced through the innovative work of colleagues such as the Pleasure Project.
What I have found has not changed is the universality of discomfort with adolescent girls’ sexuality. Many practitioners embrace buzzwords like “gender transformative approaches,” but cut corners or lack the understanding to apply the concepts in real programming because it means challenging entrenched gender norms around the circumstances adolescent girls can or cannot exercise their sexuality. It isn’t enough to embrace terminology if there isn’t substance behind it. For example, are we truly challenging social norms around adolescent pregnancy if our programs explore gender equality in terms of schooling and work, but not in terms of adolescent girls’ capacity to consent to sexual activity?
With Torchlight, it’s been a pleasure to work on a conceptual framework with the Child, Early, and Forced Marriages and Unions (CEFMU) and Sexuality Working Group. Together, we are unpacking the relationships between adolescent girls’ sexuality and child marriage, following the report Tackling the Taboo: Sexuality and gender-transformative programmes to end child, early and forced marriage and unions. The original report, and the conceptual framework we are producing, recognize that challenging harmful gender norms in an intentional way must include an examination of how social norms and the institutions that uphold them manifest as fear and control of adolescent girls’ sexuality. If marriage is viewed as protection from gender-based violence, or the only acceptable framing in which an adolescent girl engages in sex, it makes sense that the practice continues, and that legislation raising the age of marriage to 18, a common advocacy goal, is an insufficient response.
As a confession, I do not consider myself an expert in early and forced marriage, but rather a competent technical leader in adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender. This project has reinforced for me that: 1) you cannot address child marriage without addressing the gender norms that perpetuate fear and control of adolescent girls’ sexuality; 2) if you address those norms, many other favorable outcomes will likely occur; and 3) previous attempts to end the practice that have excluded this intentional response to control sexuality not only fall short of expected or sustainable outcomes but can also do harm.
A rights-based approach that seeks transformative gender norm change will avoid putting the onus on the girl to prevent early or forced marriage (or adolescent pregnancy or gender-based violence). Instead, it will build her agency and ability to advocate for her rights, as well as programming that builds critical thinking and dialogue about patriarchal values, masculinities, and girls’ autonomy in all the concentric circles that make up her life: siblings, parents, school/community environment, community leaders, and governing institutions. The end goal of this work cannot only be raising the age of marriage as patriarchy and its effects do not cease to exist at age 18. All program design should be aimed at a world in which girls, in all their diversity, are able to express their sexuality inside and outside of a relationship and to freely develop life purpose and aspirations.
This work has taken us down some paths that have been less explored, like questioning the institution of marriage itself and the surprisingly common assumption of heterosexuality within program approaches. When deeply rooted beliefs around the roles of girls, women, boys, and men are deconstructed through programmatic approaches that enable change, it is no longer acceptable to force a girl or woman into marriage at any age, engage in homophobic or transphobic discrimination and violence, or prevent access to sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents. Adolescent girls are free to exercise agency, collectivize and engage in every aspect of civic and community life. Both laws and the prevailing social norms in a community must reflect these ideals to really address the root causes.
It is truly exciting to support the creation of a new conceptual framework, and we look forward to sharing it when it is finalized. If these sex-positive, norm-challenging approaches are more widely embraced, the world will be a better place for girls, women, gender non-conforming, and LGBTIQ+ people.
Photo via Flickr