Peer-reviewed article
Associations between child marriage and food insecurity in Zimbabwe: a participatory mixed methods study
Katherine Gambir, Abel Blessing Matsika, Anna Panagiotou, Eleanor Snowden, Clare Lofthouse et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how food insecurity and child marriage are linked in Zimbabwe, involving over 1,600 community members and 22 staff interviews. Researchers found that when families lack food, parents often push daughters into marriage to reduce household expenses, and girls sometimes initiate marriages themselves because they see few other ways to survive. Education, COVID-19, and climate shocks all influenced these patterns. The researchers recommend that programs to prevent child marriage in food-insecure areas must address gender inequality and understand the multiple hardships adolescent girls face.
Key points
- 1,668 community members participated in storytelling data collection; food insecurity was identified as a primary concern
- Parents forced daughters into marriage to relieve household economic burden caused by food insecurity
- Adolescent girls initiated their own marriages due to limited survival opportunities within food insecurity, poverty, abuse, and parental migration
- COVID-19 and climate hazards exacerbated both food insecurity and child marriage
- Education may act as a protective factor that reduces girls' risk of marriage
Limitations
This study describes associations and contextual factors rather than measuring the strength or direction of causal effects. The findings are specific to one district in Zimbabwe and may not generalise to other settings or countries.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Child marriage is a global crisis underpinned by gender inequality and discrimination against girls. A small evidence base suggests that food insecurity crises can be both a driver and a consequence of child marriage. However, these linkages are still ambiguous. This paper aims to understand how food insecurity influences child marriage practices in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe. METHODS: Mixed methods, including participant-led storytelling via SenseMaker® and key informant interviews, were employed to examine the relationship between food insecurity and child marriage within a broader context of gender and socio-economic inequality. We explored the extent to which food insecurity elevates adolescent girls' risk of child marriage; and how food insecurity influences child marriage decision-making among caregivers and adolescents. Key patterns that were generated by SenseMaker participants' interpretations of their own stories were visually identified in the meta-data, and then further analyzed. Semi-structured guides were used to facilitate key informant interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, and transcribed and translated to English, then imported into NVivo for coding and thematic analysis. RESULTS: A total of 1,668 community members participated in SenseMaker data collection, while 22 staff participated in interviews. Overall, we found that food insecurity was a primary concern among community members. Food insecurity was found to be among the contextual factors of deprivation that influenced parents' and adolescent girls' decision making around child marriage. Parents often forced their daughters into marriage to relieve the household economic burden. At the same time, adolescents are initiating their own marriages due to limited alternative survival opportunities and within the restraints imposed by food insecurity, poverty, abuse in the home, and parental migration. COVID-19 and climate hazards exacerbated food insecurity and child marriage, while education may act as a modifier that reduces girls' risk of marriage. CONCLUSIONS: Our exploration of the associations between food insecurity and child marriage suggest that child marriage programming in humanitarian settings should be community-led and gender transformative to address the gender inequality that underpins child marriage and address the needs and priorities of adolescent girls. Further, programming must be responsive to the diverse risks and realities that adolescents face to address the intersecting levels of deprivation and elevate the capacities of adolescent girls, their families, and communities to prevent child marriage in food insecure settings.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
Problem
Child marriage driven by food insecurity and economic deprivation of adolescent girls in Zimbabwe
- Intervention
- Community-led, gender-transformative programming responsive to adolescent girls' diverse risks, needs and priorities in food-insecure settings
- Population
- Adolescent girls, parents, and community members in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe experiencing food insecurity
Key finding
Food insecurity identified as a primary contextual factor influencing child marriage decision-making among parents and adolescent girls