Young married girls: silenced in marriage, invisible in policy and practice

Child marriage has been an area of concern for several decades now. Despite the many health and social consequences the practice continues unabated. International and national organisations recognise the problems associated with married children and have designed and implemented policies and programmes to stop the practice and prevent more girls from getting married. Though well meant, many of these interventions focus on rescuing; meanwhile, millions of girls escape the rescue net everyday and get trapped into marriage, as they continue to suffer in silence. This forms the focus of this study. Based on data from Malindi district in Kenya, this paper examines the underlying structures that support this practice while highlighting the problems married girls from their needs point of view. By tracing the problem from the structural dimensions of society, the paper examines the adequacy of interventions as it seeks to demonstrate that married young girls are invisible in policy, thus creating a void in programmes addressing their needs. This paper argues for a need for policy to set agenda for interventions for young married girls.