Skills and income: how economic empowerment protects girls
For many families, poverty is one of the main reasons for marrying a daughter young. A bride price, or one less person to feed, can seem like a solution in hard times. Economic empowerment offers another way.
How poverty drives child marriage
When money is short, a family may see a daughter as a cost rather than a future earner. Marriage can look like a way to secure her future. In reality, it often traps her in poverty.
What economic empowerment means
Economic empowerment means giving girls and young women the skills, knowledge and opportunities to earn their own income. It can include:
- vocational training and practical skills;
- reading, writing, arithmetic and languages;
- support to start a small business;
- information about rights at work.
Why it protects girls
A girl who is learning a skill has a clear reason to delay marriage. Her family can see her value as a future earner. When she earns her own income, she gains a voice in decisions about her own life.
Benefits for the whole family
A young woman with an income can support her parents and siblings, and later her own children. She can help her daughters stay in school. In this way, one girl's opportunity can change a family's future.
Working with families
Programmes work best when they involve parents and communities. When families see the benefits, they become partners in protecting their daughters.
Every girl deserves the chance to build a life that does not depend on an early marriage.