Women’s Refugee Commission releases new study on child marriage in BARMM region of the Philippines

New York, NY – Plan International and the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), in partnership with Transforming Fragilities, launched a girl-centered, community-based study entitled Our Voices, Our Future.

The study – conducted between 2020 and 2021 – collected information and stories on the lived experiences of 2,203 adolescents, adults, community members, local government unit (LGU) representatives, NGO workers, civil society organizations, and other key stakeholders to understand the drivers of child marriage among displaced and conflict-affected communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the Philippines. It also documented the priority needs of adolescent girls and systems of support required to prevent and mitigate the risks of child marriage.

This study is part of Plan International and WRC’s multi-country Child Marriage in Humanitarian Settings Initiative. The initiative is an effort to investigate the needs and priorities of adolescents in diverse humanitarian settings to inform evidence-based and practice-informed programming to prevent and respond to girls at risk of child marriage, and meet the needs of girls who are already married.