The Effects of COVID-19 & Child Marriage on Girl’s Education and Literacy (UN Office, Geneva)
Written by: Claudia Dittel
On August 12, the Webinar “The Effects of COVID 19 & Child Marriage on Girl’s Education and Literacy” took place. It was the first out of five events from the Webinar series “Leadership and Literacy,” organized by the NGO Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in cooperation with the Women’s Federation of World Peace International (WFWPI) Office of UN Relations, Geneva.
The speaker Dr. Ayra Indrias Patras is an assistant professor at Forman Christian College University of Lahore. Dr. Patras has a Ph.D. in Gender Studies on lived experiences of poor Christian women in janitorial services in Lahore. During her work, she investigated how the intersection of gender, caste and labor generates multiple disadvantages for women at the fringes of society. She is also a member of the National Lobbying Delegation on Minority Rights, which advocates for the constitutional rights of religious minorities.
She illustrated the intersection of gender, child marriage and COVID-19 that underpins girls’ literacy and education and, accordingly, affects their emancipation, empowerment and economic security in the long term. According to UNICEF, 30 percent of girls marry before 18 years old in South Asia. As of March 2021, 10 million additional girls became at risk of early marriages due to the spread of COVID-19. Citing UNESCO data, she reported that 11 million girls never came back to school after the spread of the pandemic. This trend affects particularly low-income countries, where even the access to digital technology is not only classist but also gendered. Dr. Patrias explains that girls’ education is not considered an investment and that parents are under high pressure from society to marry off their daughters. Girls become an economic load for the household, especially following the pandemic, in particular in countries in which the social welfare is poor.
In addition to that, traditionally men were viewed as the breadwinners and women were mainly seen as caretakers. Given the circumstances, many girls quit education, due to the impossibility of accessing online courses, and are married off by the family. It is not by chance that the numbers of early marriages increased following the spread of COVID-19. Besides economic and cultural considerations, there is also a social dimension that contributes to the phenomenon. In Punjab, the rate of sexual abuse and domestic violence is dramatically high. That further increased during the lockdown. Marrying off the daughters can be the only way out for parents to get daughters to safety and to conceal the cultural shame from sexual violence.
Dr. Patrias concluded that education can act as a social contraceptive in such scenarios. However, women’s opportunities to access education are uneven. For this reason, her recommendations consisted in improving parenting techniques and, in doing so, the international community should rely upon leaders of the communities. Improving research is important as well. Researchers should always keep in mind the empirical dimension to substantiate these studies, by engaging and interacting with the grassroots community.
Dr. Patrias’s insightful speech was followed by a dynamic Q&A session. The first question regarded the economic benefits deriving from women’s education. Dr. Patrias suggested that parents should be informed about the correlation between economic independence and health. There is a positive correlation between mortality rate and literacy. Cultural stereotypes should be demolished too. Parents should be convinced that educated women could be good mothers as they can provide their kids with education in turn in the future if they have a stable income in the first place.
A second question regarded how to raise awareness among UN bodies. For Dr. Patrias, it is essential to establish a direct channel of dialogue with actors from civil society and women activists. With this regard, shadow reports from civil society actors should be integrated with official reports from states and IOs to measure signs of progress and assess the compliance of states to international conventions.
A follow-up question referred to the efforts to take at the national level. Monitoring and fundraising are the priorities, but it is essential to bring the issue into everyday discourses. Otherwise, the risk is that conservative voices, which do not approve of women’s education, take the lead.
To the question “what other contraceptives might be effective,” Dr. Patrias outlined the improvement of parenting techniques. First, both parents should participate in projects. Second, stakeholders in community projects should pose the right questions to understand how parents can justify early marriages. “What else can we do” is a common response on the side of parents. That should be put into the discussion by offering alternatives. In other words, stakeholders should find a way to deconstruct the gender stereotypes that associate early marriages with social and economic security and should emphasize the prevalence of justice over the necessity of concealing the social stigma. Eventually, these projects should be given continuity. Unfortunately, many brilliant projects do not have a follow-up due to the lack of sustainability already.
