CHD – Trung tâm Tư vấn Sức khỏe và Phát triển Cộng đồng Tư vấn, Sức khỏe, Phát triển Cộng đồng
In recent years, the problem of child marriage and consanguineous marriage in the Central Highlands provinces in general and Gia Lai province in particular has been one of the painful problems, leaving many serious consequences for the victims themselves, individuals, families and society.
- Krong Pa district is one of the leading districts in Gia Lai province with 127/882 child marriages and 01 consanguineous marriage;
- The percentage of ethnic minorities in Krong Pa accounts for 70%, Gia Rai, Cham, and Ede are the three largest ethnic groups here.
- They live scattered in the fields and farming is their main job, other adults were often away from home to work as workers. The proportion of poor and near-poor households accounted for 17.9% and 10.7% respectively, of which the number of ethnic minority (EM) households accounted for 90%.;
- Illiteracy in the district accounted for 11.2% and the rate drop out of school of EM children are higher than that of Kinh children and of EM girls are higher than that of EM boys.;
- Adolescents do not have the opportunity to access and receive contraceptive support services (32.1%); Adolescent childbirth (10-19 years old) is 7.7%.
Source: Reports from Gia Lai Provincial Department of Health – 2022
Although Gia Lai province has implemented the project of “Reducing child marriage and consanguineous marriage in ethnic minority areas, for the 2016 – 2020 period” however its effectiveness was low due to a number of factors namely: 1) Traditional concepts and practices are quite open about pre-marriage sex, traditional marriage practices, misconceptions held by EM people; 2) Incomplete understanding of: Gender equality, reproductive health (RH) care; Safe sex; STIs, abortions; the negative implications of under-age marriage, consanguineous marriage; Life/coping skills dealing with unsafe sex, teenage childbirth, and the lack of access to comprehensive RH and SH services therefore adolescent ended up with unsafe sex leading to unwanted pregnancy – most cases were resulted in child marriage. Consequently, there is an increase of 13 pairs of child marriages compared to that of 2020 ; 3) The participation and capacity building of EM girls has not been mobilized to communicate to the youth and surrounding communities.
In fact, it has been shown that the most directly affected by child marriage and consanguineous marriage are girls. Girls are more directly affected than boys: career development opportunities are lost due to dropping out of school to being a “wife/mother” while boys don’t have to as women have to do housework, taking care of the family, children is considered women’s job; Health decline is also more than that of boys/men because their bodies are not fully developed, they work too hard and face more chances of her dying due to complications during pregnancy, childbirth; On the other hand, the pressure of socio-cultural conception – not accepting the unmarried but already pregnant, while the economy is difficult, the family lacks labor, so the custom of “stay-in-law” will be the best solution for the families. In ethnic minority families, the care and management of minors by families and schools has not been paid much attention, which is also one of the reasons for the increase in the rate of child marriage and consanguineous marriage.
Before this situation, Center for Health Consultation and Community Development (CHD) implemented project “Eliminate child marriage, consanguineous marriage through improving the capacity and increasing the participation of EM girls” to “Eliminate child marriage, consanguineous marriage, and teenage childbearing/teenage births through improving the capacity and increasing the participation of EM girls, teachers, families at schools/ boarding EM schools, and Community Malaria Action Teams (CMAT) in Krong Pa district of Gia Lai Province”.
The project has been funded by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI) – Canadian Embassy in Vietnam to implement from July 2022 to February 2023 with the cooperation of the Department of Health, Center CDC and School Administrator, teachers, students of 07 schools (1 district boarding school, 03 secondary schools, 03 high schools), and Community Malaria Action Teams (CMAT) in Krong Pa district of Gia Lai Province)