| dc.description.abstract | This study set out to assess the effects of child marriage on girl child. Its specific objectives
were to establish the factors influencing child marriage among school going girls; to determine
the effect of child marriage on the girl child and propose strategies to reduce child marriages
among school going girls in Arapai sub county, Soroti District
Given the nature of the study and its requirement of seeking understanding of factors
influencing child marriage; its extent and strategies to address it, a qualitative research
approach was used in the context of a case-study research design. Purposive and stratified
purposive sampling techniques were used to select respondents for the study. These were
studied by use of in-depth interview research method with in-depth interview guides.
The study revealed that, child marriage occurs in poor, economically deprived communities as
a result of poverty, gender discrimination, cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, lack of decision
making skills. Poor school environment directly affected girl child education and health to
mention but a few. Girls are overworked and their health gets worse; they became pregnant
early and led to maternal and child mortality rate. The study also revealed that girls’ are faced
with domestic violence from their homes and even when they are married the mother in law
mistreat them at home. Most of them suffer from sexually transmitted infection with a high
risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS resulting in school drop out
It
is
therefore recommended that the community be involved in awareness creation;
Government education programmes to benefit both girls and boys and improve the
curriculum and the quality of teaching, flexibility schedules to allow girls meet personal needs
Net working and collaboration by different actors. Legislating against child marriage and
promote girls’ voices. Power at multiple levels is also vital to their self efficiency.
Empowering the youth in peer-to-peer approach, sexuality education in schools and life skills
as determinants of child marriage from girl’s own perspectives be enhanced, systematic
documentation, monitoring, evaluation and research remain very paramount in the fight
against child marriage | en_US |
