Behind the Wedlock: Unlocking Opportunities for Education and Empowerment

The practice of child marriage is still prevalent in several pockets in Indonesia and often leads to a discontinuation of post-primary education, particularly among girls. Our proposed intervention aims to reduce the incidence of child marriage and improve post-primary education outcomes by addressing the underlying factors of child marriage – religious beliefs and present bias. An information campaign, which provides an alternative religious view about child marriage and raises awareness about the risks associated with child marriage, will be delivered through short videos shown as intermissions during community movie screenings or religious gatherings. The impact evaluation will be conducted in East Java, in districts with high incidences of child marriage. We will conduct the study in two stages: 1) video development, identifying the best method to deliver the video, logistical pilot, and 2) implementation of the randomized evaluation. The current proposal aims to obtain funding for the first stage.