NCT06947018

Impact Evaluation of Türkiye's Adolescent Girls' and Boys' Empowerment Programme for Elimination of Child Marriage

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 820 (estimated)
• Sponsor: UNICEF · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 12 Years – 17 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Low income, refugee, displaced and disaster affected populations face a variety of protection risks, including higher risk of child, early and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU). This is the case in Türkiye, where low income, refugee populations and those affected by the 2023 earthquake in Southern and Central Türkiye face elevated risk of child marriage. As part of the UNICEF Türkiye Country Office (TCO) commitment to implement comprehensive interventions that aim to contribute to a change in social norms and attitudes towards gender equality, the CO and partners have developed the "Adolescent Girls' and Boys' Empowerment for Elimination of Child Marriage" program (hereafter "the program"). The program is an 8-week group-based empowerment and life skills training for adolescent girls aged 12 - 18 years old, a 4-session adolescent boys awareness training, and a one-time awareness raising seminar for caregivers. The current trial has the overall objective of evaluating the short-term causal impact of the program with respect to CEFMU and related outcomes for adolescent girls. The trial design is an individual randomized control trial, allocating 820 households with adolescent girls to either treatment or control on a 1:1 basis. The primary data collection includes a pre- and post-intervention caregiver and adolescent face-to-face survey, as well as a one-time qualitative data collection. The trial results will inform the future operation and scale-up of the program, as well as contribute to the broader evidence base on what works to increase the empowerment of adolescent girls and reduce CEFMU.

Detailed description

Low income, refugee, displaced and disaster affected populations face a variety of protection risks, including higher risk of child, early and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU). This is the case in Türkiye, where low income, refugee populations and those affected by the 2023 earthquake in Southern and Central Türkiye face elevated risk of child marriage. As part of the UNICEF Türkiye Country Office (TCO) commitment to implement comprehensive interventions that aim to contribute to a change in social norms and attitudes towards gender equality, the CO and partners have developed the "Adolescent Girls' and Boys' Empowerment for Elimination of Child Marriage" program (hereafter "the program"). The program is an 8-week group-based empowerment and life skills training for adolescent girls aged 12 - 18 years old, a 4-session adolescent boys awareness training and a one-time awareness raising seminar for caregivers. The current trial has the overall objective of evaluating the short-term causal impact of the program with respect to CEFMU and related outcomes for adolescent girls. The trial seeks to answer the following evaluation questions: * 1\) Does the program improve participant adolescent girls' agency, self-confidence, and gender-equitable attitudes (including for CEFMU), and to what extent? * 2\) Does the program improve the household enabling environment, including gender-equitable attitudes (including CEFMU), social support, protective behaviors against CEFMU, and use of social services among participating caregivers and in the broader community, and to what extent? * 3\) Does the program reduce CEFMU for adolescent girls, and to what extent? * 4\) Through which pathways (or combination of pathways) do potential impacts occur? * 5\) Was the program implemented in a manner to maximize potential impacts? and * 6\) What is the return-on-investment (cost-benefit calculation) for the program? The trial design is an individual randomized control trial, allocating 820 households with adolescent girls to either treatment or control on a 1:1 basis. The primary data collection includes a pre- and post-intervention caregiver and adolescent face-to-face survey, as well as a one-time qualitative data collection. The trial results will inform the future operation and scale-up of the program, as well as contribute to the broader evidence base on what works to increase the empowerment of adolescent girls and reduce CEFMU.

Conditions

• Marriage Age
• Marriage

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Adolescent Girls' and Boys' Empowerment Program	The program was developed based on a social behavioural change (SBC) approach in order to change attitudes and behaviours of the participants, consisting of the following main activities on a 6 - 8 week cycle. * Girls' Empowerment Training: Workshops comprise six sessions of approximately 80 minutes each, held separately with girls aged 12-15 and 16-18 years in groups of approximately 12-20 adolescents on a range of life skill themes. * Boys' Awareness Raising Training: Similar to the girls' training, four workshops are organized for boys aged 12-15 and 16-18 years, in separate sessions, with similar length and group size. * Awareness Raising Seminars to Caregivers: Caregivers (e.g., mothers, fathers) are invited to a one-time seminar focused on the negative outcomes of child marriage and role of caregivers in preventing child marriage, lasting approximately one hour and conducted separately for fathers and mothers to eventually influence social norms in the family and communities.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-04-21
• Primary completion: 2025-10-30
• Completion: 2025-10-30
• First posted: 2025-04-27
• Last updated: 2025-04-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Turkey (Türkiye)