Affiliated organization : UNICEF
Type of publication : Report
Date of publication : 2022
Context
Social indicators in Chad are very low despite the government’s efforts to improve the country’s socio-economic situation.
Yet Chad has made social development a priority by allocating resources to finance social sectors. Thanks to oil resources, the country has continued investing in the priority social sectors of health, education and water, although investments are still below international standards.
Despite the efforts made by the Chadian government and its partners to improve the economic and social situation, harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) are recurrent for many Chadian children and women. The qualitative study on the socio-anthropological determinants of child marriage and FGM conducted in the provinces of Mandoul, Ouaddaï and Tandjilé by the Ministry in charge of Women, Early Childhood and National Solidarity (MFPESN) in 2015 with the support of UNICEF confirmed the fact that child marriage and FGM are common traditional practices in Chad.
- Female Genital Mutilations
According to the results of MICS-6 (2019), 34.1% of women aged 15-49 have undergone FGM and 7% of girls aged 0-14 have undergone some form of the practice.
According to the results of the MICS survey conducted in 2019, 22% of women in Chad believe that the practice of excision should continue. The perception evolves according to the status of the woman who has been excised, her place of residence and her level of education. 44.1% of excised women do not want the practice of female genital mutilation to be abandoned.
Moreover, the perception of the practice of excision is correlated with the woman’s level of education; only 8.9% of women with a higher level of education would like to see this practice continue. In terms of evolution, the percentage of women at the national level who think that the practice of FGM should continue has dropped from 29.1% in 2014 to 22% in 2019 according to the results of the MICS survey.
- Evolution of child marriage from 2010 to 2019
In 2019, 60.6% of women aged 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18. The rate of child marriage is highest in rural areas. 63.3% of women aged 20 to 24 in rural areas were married before the age of 18 (compared to 49.9% in urban areas) and 25% of women in the same age group were married before the age of 15 (compared to 21% in urban areas).
Identified barriers
Harmful practices are caused by several factors:
- Social norms and traditions: like most African countries, Chad is a country where oral tradition is very strong, with more than 200 ethnic groups and therefore as many traditions that are passed on from one generation to the next. This means that customary and traditional practices are better respected than written laws, which most of the population describes as ‘western or imported laws’; there are social norms that link FGM to marriage, as families circumcise their daughters either to prepare them for marriage or to satisfy initiation rites that only require the participation of the circumcised girls and/or women.
- Certain religious considerations;
- Insufficient resources allocated to the social services: social services lack budgets for service provision. They are dependent on funding from partner programmes;
- Women and children have poor access to basic social services and to the justice system, therefore it is difficult for them to seek justice;
- The impunity for the perpetrators of violence against children and women encourages survivors to remain silent;
- The low level of literacy among parents leads to ignorance and misperception of the risks associated with harmful practices.
The consequences of harmful practices on children and women
Harmful practices (FGM and child marriage) have harmful consequences on the lives of girls and women: difficult childbirth, risk of fistula, risk of infection with Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), HIV/AIDS, stigma, and sometimes death.
They are a serious violation of human rights. Since the practices are more common in rural areas they perpetuate the cycle of poverty. More often, as married girls are withdrawn from school, they are deprived of a proper education and effective participation in the development of their families, communities, and country.
The national responses
The Government of the Republic of Chad, with the support of partners including UNICEF, is implementing actions to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against children.
These include:
- A national campaign against child marriage was launched in March 2015, which led to the signing of Ordinance No. 006/PR/2015 on the prohibition of child marriage by the President of the Republic of Chad in 2015; Chad was the first country in Africa to launch the African Union campaign to eliminate child marriage;
- Creation of a working group on child marriage and FGM;
- Social/behavioural change activities in the areas affected by these practices to raise community awareness of the risks and consequences of harmful practices; this has led to the signing of public commitments to abandon child marriage by community leaders (traditional and religious chiefs);
- Strengthening of care services for child victims or children at risk: psychosocial, medical, and legal care; 55 girls and women have benefited from reconstructive surgery in Mandoul province.
The way forward
To enable Chadian children to grow up without violence, in a healthy and safe environment in their communities, and to benefit from the same opportunities in life, we need to reinvent a Chad without violence against children and women. To achieve this, significant efforts will be made in the following areas:
- Advocacy at all levels of Chadian society;
- Strengthening the national child protection system through the improvement of the legislative and regulatory framework for child protection, the adoption of positive social norms, the establishment of an information system on child protection, the provision of financial resources by the Government to social services for adequate interventions;
- Establishment of social protection schemes for girls and vulnerable families, and provision of better access to education, health services and economic opportunities.