What does it take to persuade policy makers to make real progressive change? Kath Ford explains how Oxford University’s Young Lives study found success with a combination of robust longitudinal data, translating research into policy influencing and, crucially, relationships built painstakingly over many years.
When Peru finally passed its law to ban all child marriage in November 2023, Congresswoman Flor Pablo said this: “Young Lives longitudinal evidence on the causes and consequences of child marriage in Peru has been pivotal for driving this important legislative change. By giving voice to the lived experiences of girls and young women, the study has enabled a much more in-depth understanding of how poverty and entrenched gender norms continue to drive child marriage, particularly among remote and Indigenous communities.”
Prior to this legislation, children as young as 14 could marry in Peru with the consent of a parent, even though the minimum legal marriage age was otherwise 18. The change in the law also allowed girls who had been married as minors to have their marriages annulled.
For the Young Lives team, it was an extraordinary moment: one that had been many years in the making for our multi-country research programme that has been tracking the lives of 12,000 young people to understand the causes and consequences of growing up in poverty and inequality.
How evidence reached the heart of parliament
Two key events in the run-up to the bill helped us to get the attention of policy makers. First, Young Lives evidence was directly cited in the parliamentary bill to ban child marriage presented to Congress on 29 September 2022, at the initiative of Congresswoman Pablo. Second, in December 2022, the Young Lives Peru team – represented by my colleagues Dr Alan Sánchez and Dr Vanessa Rojas Arangoitia – were invited by Congresswoman Pablo to present our findings on early marriage and teenage pregnancy, as part of an evidence roundtable discussing the bill.
But behind such pivotal moments, lay years of work. Here, I want to share three things that laid the foundations for us to successfully make our case.
| The Young Lives study |
| Young Lives is a longitudinal study of poverty and inequality based at Oxford University that has been following the lives of 12,000 young people – from infancy to adulthood – in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam since 2002. Partnering locally and internationally, the study’s mission is to deliver policy-relevant research to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and young people, especially in times of crises. |
| Find out more about Young Lives here. |
1. Robust and comprehensive longitudinal data
At the heart of our advocacy on ending child marriage has been robust longitudinal data.
Over two decades, we have gathered compelling evidence across all our study countries that shows how early marriage and becoming a parent during adolescence corresponds to significantly worse life outcomes for both young women and their children.
As our Director, Dr Marta Favara, says: “Longitudinal cohort studies, such as Young Lives, collect information about the same children over time as they grow up, essentially moving from a snapshot to a filmstrip of children’s lives. This is important in assessing the cumulative effects of life experiences.”
Our evidence demonstrated that girls who marry early in Peru are less likely to complete secondary education, with reduced opportunities to get a decent job and gain financial independence, and lower sense of wellbeing and empowerment. Early marriage is also linked to early pregnancy, with children born to teenage mothers having lower birthweight and shorter height-for-age. Overall, we found that poverty and entrenched gender inequality are key drivers of child marriage. Social and cultural norms that discriminate against girls and women also undermined opportunities for girls, limiting their educational and job prospects.
In this short video, my colleague Alan Sánchez explains: “Having such a robust evidence base was critical, because many people in Peru didn’t actually believe that early marriage had negative consequences.”
2. Translating research to influence policymakers, the media and the public
We have put huge effort into translating our research and making it accessible to diverse audiences, whether that’s taking findings directly to policy makers and influential players; creating messages that can win media coverage; or using our findings to create our own innovative communications, such as animations.
Leading up to the parliamentary bill, our team in Peru presented evidence on the impacts of early marriage and cohabitation through presentations and briefings to key government officials, including in the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, and the Ministry of Education. That culminated in Young Lives evidence featuring in the bill itself and our invitation to the influential congressional roundtable.
Before this, we helped to shape government thinking and public debate on the prevalence and impact of child marriage in Peru over many years, working alongside international organisations such as UNFPA and UNICEF, Plan International, and leading academics.
We also worked with the national press, leading to our findings being cited in high-profile articles in leading publications such as El Comercio and La República, and paid particular attention to sharing individual stories that bring home the reality of what young people are living through. At the same time, we looked for new formats that can reach a wider audience which is what led us to create products such as this animation about child marriage.
3. Long-term relationships that build trust and collaboration
We think that having a project that has been on the ground in Peru for over two decades, working collaboratively with our country partner GRADE (a local not-for-profit research centre), has been one of the crucial factors behind our successes, enabling us to build long-term partnerships of trust and collaboration with key government partners and policy-makers. Influencing national policies, programmes and change takes time and relationships matter, as does being in it for the long haul.
But ending child marriage will take more than legislation alone
While the change in Peru’s legislation is an important step in protecting young girls from child marriage, legislation alone is not enough to shift persistent social norms – especially as, in addition to formal marriages, young girls are also vulnerable to informal unions and cohabitation, a practice relatively common in Peru. In the past decade, over 4,000 child marriages have been registered in Peru: but a further 56,000 children, predominantly girls aged between 11 and 17, are estimated to live in informal unions or cohabitation with adult men.
Building the evidence base to strengthen approaches that can tackle the underlying causes of early marriage, informal unions and parenthood remains critical. That will mean addressing factors associated with poverty and inequality, and social norms that discriminate against girls and young women, particularly those in poor and marginalised communities.
We need to ensure that interventions are underpinned by robust evidence of what works in different contexts. Importantly, we also need a diversity of voices to inform changes in legislation that work best for different communities.
And of course, we need to continue broadening our efforts, drawing on our rich dataset accumulated over two decades. Every year, says Unicef, at least 12 million girls are married before they reach the age of 18. That is 28 girls every minute. We are also focusing on the campaign to end child marriage in India and hope that our work can inform wider action around the globe that can bring real change, just like we have seen in Peru.
Kath Ford is Deputy Director at Young Lives, University of Oxford.
Young Lives last month received the Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford Impact Award for its role in influencing legislative change to end child marriage in Peru.
This post was first published on Oxfam’s From Poverty to Power blog
Find out more:
From research to action: How the Young Lives project is helping to protect girls from child marriage
YL Impact Case Study: Peru: Legislative Change to Prohibit Child Marriage
Raising the Age of Marriage in India – Legislation Alone Will Not be Enough
