RAF members held their first All Members' Meeting of 2025 in March to discuss the new thematic priorities for the year, including:
- Informal child marriages;
- Sustainable funding for child marriage prevention; and
- Displacement, returns, and child marriage prevention
Stay tuned for new RAF webinars and event that will address these timely issues!
Amman, 30 April 2024 – In April 2024, RAF completed a desk review on the impact of child marriage on children living with disabilities in the MENA region. The desk review study demonstrates that marriage among children with disabilities is present in contexts where child marriage is practiced in MENA.
Casablanca, 25 May 2024 – From May 22 to 24, 14 RAF INGO, NGO, UN, and academic members took part in the Child Marriage Solutions Workshop (CMSW) in Casablanca, Morocco, where more than 45 UNICEF and UNFPA child protection and gender experts, as well as NGO partners, gathered to discuss the preliminary findings from UNICEF Innocenti’s most recent study on child marriage in the Middle East.
We are delighted to share RAF's December 2023 Newsletter with you.
On 6 February 2024, the Regional Action Forum to End Child Marriage in Arab States / MENA (RAF) hosted an online discussion on the linkages between child marriage and FGM with more than 30 of its members and experts to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.
Child marriage remains a significant issue in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with social, economic, and child and human rights implications. Overall rate of child marriage in the region has been declining for decades and is now meaningfully lower than the global average. The current rates remain nonetheless alarming, with serious concerns about the impact of instability on child marriage within the region.
Programme Document for Phase III of the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage
Programme title: UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage
Joint programme outcomes: