Despite Bangladesh enacting several strict regulations against child marriage, such as setting a minimum age of marriage, limited legal repercussions are observed within communities (Akter et al., 2022). Enforcement failures and entrenched societal norms are likely enabling its prevalence. The BRAC Social Empowerment and Legal Protection (SELP) program is implementing a set of multi-layered interventions to reduce child marriage as well as piloting conditional cash transfers. A rigorous evaluation of the two-year SELP interventions and the cash transfer has been developed in partnership between SELP and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD).
Researchers: Munshi Sulaiman, PhD; Shaila Ahmed, PhD; Khandker Wahedur Rahman, PhD; Sakib Mahmood, PhD; Md. Johirul Islam; Prof Ben D’Excelle; Prof Pieter Serneels
Partners: BRAC Social Empowerment and Legal Protection Programme (SELP)
Timeline: 2022-2025
Status: Ongoing
Contact: Marjan Hossain; marjan.hossain@bracu.ac.bd
Context
The interventions to combat child marriage are wide-ranging and varied, including empowering individuals socially, providing economic incentives, and educating communities about the risks. Evidence suggests that conditional cash and asset transfers, job opportunities, and livelihood training for girls have been most successful in addressing child marriage. However, community-level factors also influence child marriage rates, emphasizing the importance of prevailing social norms. In this context, BRAC’s SELP program is implementing various interventions to reduce child marriage and BIGD will evaluate how combinations of community-led and economic incentives can interact to reduce child marriage.
Objectives
The primary goal of the study is to evaluate the overall impact of the SELP program on addressing child marriage practices. Further, the study will also focus on how these outcomes vary between treatment arms when economic incentive is layered as an additional component in the form of conditional cash transfer or livelihood support. In addition, a relative cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted for the economic incentive vis-à-vis the core SELP model.
The study is relevant to SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), particularly to the goal of promoting sustained, inclusive, full, and productive employment and decent work for all.
Methodology
The study uses a four-arm cluster-level randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the causal relationship between the program variations and outcome measures. A total 450 villages (clusters) from randomly selected upazilas will also randomly be assigned into the study arms.
For upazilas receiving the high cash intervention
A group of 100 cluster villages from 10 upazilas will receive the SELP interventions (Palli Samaj and Girls Brigade and a high cash transfer. On the other hand, a group of 50 cluster villages within the upazilas that do not receive the high cash intervention will serve as control and be monitored for any potential spillover effects.
For upazilas not receiving the high cash intervention
A group of 140 cluster villages from 30 upalizas will only receive the SELP intervention and not any economic incentive. A group of 100 cluster villages from 30 upazilas, on the other hand, will receive the SELP intervention and a conditional low cash transfer. A group of 60 cluster villages will act as control with no SELP interventions conducted in them.
Findings and Recommendations
Forthcoming
