Penn UNICEF Summer Programme on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change

Penn –UNICEF Summer Programme on Advances in Social Norms and

Social Change

Conceptualisation of the Child and the Implications on

Child Rights Acquisition- A Case Study on Early

Marriage in Bangladesh

Sarah Graham UNICEF – Bangladesh July 16, 2010

1 Background

The child protection programme of UNICEF Bangladesh aims to create a culture of respect for and the realisation of children’s’ protection rights. This is achieved through the development of child rights and gender based appropriate policies, advocacy initiatives, programmes addressing societal attitudes and norms, and strengthened capacity in government and civil society to respond to protection issues and to establish protective mechanisms.

The status of children in Bangladesh is deeply rooted in social norms, attitudes and practices.

While many of these support the healthy development of the child, there are also many that negatively affect a child’s realisation of rights. Steps to initiate change have been taken and are reflected in domestic legislation and policy as well as Bangladesh’s ratification of the

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) but the resulting action is minimal. This helps illustrate how universal rights are recognised in theory and even through proscriptive legal norms but remain variable in practice; a key reason being the empirical and normative expectations which contradict the acceptance of children as subjects of unique rights inalienable to them based on age. (Empirical expectations refer to how an individual believes that the other members of her community will behave in specific situations.

Normative expectations refer to an individual’s beliefs about how the other members of her community expect her to behave in those specific situations.)

Child Marriage in Bangladesh and the Kishori Abhijan Project

Legally, the minimum age of marriage in Bangladesh is 21 years for boys, and 18 years for girls. However, in practice, the average age of marriage for girls is much younger. The 2004

Bangladesh Demographic health Survey (BDHS) report indicates that more than half the

2 women between the ages of 20-49 entered marriage before their 15 birthday. The median age at marriage for women between the ages of 20-49 is 14.8 years.1

Reasons for early marriage vary according to context, and may include both social and economic dimensions. Some girls are forced into marriage at a very early age. Others may have given what passes for ‘consent’ in the eyes of custom or the law, but in reality, consent to their binding union has been made by others on their behalf.2 Many Bangladeshi girls are married soon after puberty, partly to free their parents from an economic burden and partly to protect the girls’ sexual purity. Where a girl’s family is very poor or she has lost her parents, she may be married as a third or fourth wife to a much older man, to fulfill the role of sexual and domestic servant.3

The consequences of such a practice from a human rights perspective are far-reaching.

Marriage, in almost all cases, demands the withdrawal of the girl from school.4 This may be because of preparation for marriage or as a direct result of marriage. Once married, the young bride in her husband’s household is subject to relationships of marked inequities in power. Isolated from her natal family, with a husband who may be seven to ten years her senior, the adolescent bride most often has no negotiating position, and no control over decision-making. She often becomes pregnant at an early age. According to the BDHS

2004, one-third of adolescents age 15-19 have begun childbearing. Twenty-eight percent of these adolescents in Bangladesh have given birth, and another 5 percent are pregnant with their first child.5

1 National Institute for Population Research and Training (NIPORT), Mitra and Associates, and ORC Macro (2005) Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey 2004. Dhaka, Bangladesh and Calverton, MD (USA)

2 Innocenti Digest Vol 7 2001Early Marriage Child Spouses p. 2

3 Ibid

4 Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey

5 Ibid

3 This examination of child marriage in 2000 led to the Kishori Abhijan project, which was further refined in 2006 based on the evaluation carried out by the Population Council. One of the project’s findings was that early marriage is the outcome of a lack of participation of girls in decisions that affect their lives (empowerment). The lack of participation has many causes among which are prevailing social norms. When norms are involved, the empirical (Do girls in my community participate? In what situations? To what degree? How?) and normative expectations (Do people think that girls should or should not participate? In what situations?

To what degree? How? And, consequently, should I as a community member encourage or discourage girls from participating?) guide individual practice within a social environment.

Kishori Abhijan’s response was to provide opportunities for girls, and later boys, to gain awareness on their rights through topical Life Skills Based Education (LSBE) and improved access to livelihood opportunities supported through community based interventions to raise appreciation amongst community members (parents and community influentials) on topical areas such as child rights, the harmful effects of child marriage and dowry, reproductive health, gender, violence against women etc. The community based interventions were further strengthened by the Interactive Popular Theatre (IPT) and Sports for Development (S4D) components.

As this project has been on-going for 10 years, we are at a stage where we can ask ourselves, has it been successful in initiating the sustainable change identified as the desired outcome result in the project’s design. Specific components on personal attitudinal and behavioural change have been successful especially in relation to knowledge acquisition (awareness) and communication on key topical areas affecting or influencing the lives of adolescents. This is supported in the findings of the Behavioural Monitoring study which looks at knowledge, communication and action for the key target groups (adolescents, parents and community influentials). A shift in practice can also be assumed on early marriage occurrence and birth

4 registration in specific subsets of communities and will be verified in the final endline research taking place this year6. I believe it fair to say however, that the project has had a more limited (assumed) impact on shifting social norms in relation to child marriage; we stop the practice in specific cases but not the norms perpetuating the practice. This means awareness has been raised at a personal level but has not been taken on by the community as a needed change in affairs.

Formation of Socially Accepted Practices

A social context is visible as the empirical situation. How people collectively act within a social context creates an empirical ‘picture’. This picture is made up of data (cues) which is individually interpreted and categorised. The process of categorisation triggers a script and initiates personal and empirical expectations and in some situations, moral and normative expectations.7 The strength of the normative expectations, while somewhat individual based on their conceptualisation (interpretation) through a shared identity within an ‘imagined’ community, are in actual fact, a preconditioned response (to varying degees). An individual response acts to contribute towards an approved collective response known individually through normative expectations and therefore acts as an incentive to behave, or respond in a certain way when certain scripts are triggered.

This process is spiral. Understanding and interpretation builds on previous experience and guides future actions which allows for a degree of prediction.8 If we can understand the empirical and normative expectations which influence and initiate motivators and behaviour, we can better predict the outcome. Therefore, if we can identify individual expectations on

6 UNICEF, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, A House of Survey Research (SURCH), CMES and BRAC (April 2010) Report on Behavioral Change Monitoring through Kishori Abhijan Project – Round 4. UNICEF Bangladesh

7 Cristina Bicchieri

8 Cristina Bicchieri

5 child marriage which are socially driven, recognising that there are economic and political reasons as well, there is a stronger likelihood that we can shift social norms; this will shift the wind driving the spiral and will create a new condition.9

It is important to note that child marriage, unlike Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGMC), is not guaranteed to be predominantly practiced given the normative expectations of a community, but is viewed favourably in many communities and, when it is practiced, it is communally accepted, or even praised. How strongly it is accepted and practiced depends on the individual interpretation of cues. By considering this bundle of cues, an individual is able to categorise, which helps them to call on a script that identifies the relevant empirical and (if applicable) normative expectations.

In this case, some relevant scripts are the scripts for “girl child,” “parent,” “guardian,” and

“marriage”. For instance, in the script for a young girl there is a strong concern that her honour might be compromised if she doesn’t marry soon after puberty. This is because marriage is seen as a preventive mechanism against sexual promiscuity as well as sexual abuse. As honour refers not only to that of the girl and family, but also community, the union also supports familial obligations under guardianship. This brings in a script for parents and guardian. The force of the scripts vary along many dimensions including the social and economic class of the reference group. This makes cues and categorisation very important; the marriage of a middle income 11 year old girl to a man 25 years her senior who already has 4 wives will not be as accepted as the marriage of a very poor 14 year old girl to a man 15 years her senior. Acceptability is influenced by the economic reality of the family involved, the role of a girl child in family and the community’s interpretation of the ‘child’s’ readability to take on the adult responsibility of marriage. As stated earlier, the voice of the

9 It is recognized that shifting social norms is only ONE component of the change process and must be complimented with economic and political action. This is because the ‘situation’ can initiate more than one script.

6 adolescent girl is very rarely considered and the decision is made on her behalf so her ideas would not have a strong influence on interpretation of normative behaviour. This has to do with the gender roles, her participation and her decision making power and is directly related to her place in family and community. All of these attitudes are influenced by how a community conceptualises childhood.

Let us consider child marriage and frame it within a community’s perception of childhood.

This will help us understand the scripts that play out in different contexts in which child marriage takes place. This will help us understand the circumstances under which the practice has been manifested and sustained. In other words, we must nest the social practice of child marriage within a broader understanding of how childhood is conceptualised in

Bangladesh and how this conceptualisation might be at odds with theories on child development which provide the backbone for a human rights based approach to child programming.

Conceptualisation of Childhood in Bangladesh

Bangladesh society does not consider “every human being below the age of 18” as a child.10

This in turn denies each child of being recognized as a human being with special rights to ensure survival, full development and participation.11 This has contributed enormously to the lack of meaningful recognition of children as individual subjects of rights in Bangladesh and calls for a shift in perception which can lead to the re-categorisation of children as rights holders. How do we do this? First, we have to understand the contextual reality.

In is important to understand that there is no one word in Bangla to represent a child from birth to the age of eighteen. The word ‘child’ translated into Bangla is usually ‘shishu’. This

10 Blanchet, Terese (4th edition 2008) Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhood. The University Press Limited, Dhaka Bangladesh

11 UNICEF Document

7 term refers to a young child who is still in need of milk. In this stage, a child is unknowing and ‘need only follow the decisions taken by elders for their own good’.12 As a stage in life, the term ‘shishukal’ is used and categorise children falling within the age bracket of birth and age five but is not stagnant. This is because children within this age range can shift out of the category depending on their circumstances. For example, the eldest child within a family has the responsibility to take care of his or her younger siblings. This responsibility shortens that particular child’s stay in shishukal. Likewise, if a young child is made to work or ‘fend for him/herself’ they are no longer considered a shishu.13 On the other side, a child who is well cared for and receives the treatment categorised under shishu may remain a shishu up to the age of 12 but given that shishu implies unknowing and dependent and therefore in need of protection, there is a common understanding that a person of 12 years of age should no longer be a shishu. Blanchet (2008) states that outside of the official texts and discourse, the word shishu is never used for youth beyond puberty.

The Bangla terms used to describe the next phase of childhood are gendering.

The term balok/baloka and kishor/kishori indicate sex reflecting the increasingly gender-specific roles which girls and boys are expected to play. The use of a gender neutral world to describe youth up to the age of 18, reifies childhood in a way that is meaningless in Bengali culture.14

The stage of balok/baloka and kishor/kishori marks the movement of a child to the stage of

‘understanding’. What it is one ‘should’ understand and what one should know is morally good and right should now guide the practice and behaviour of individuals to carry out their duty (dhormo) in life.15 This stage of understanding, as exemplified earlier to illustrate how a

12 Blanchet, Therese (4th edition 2008) Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhood. The University Press Limited, Dhaka Bangladesh, p. 38

13 Ibid

14 Ibid

15 Ibid p. 48

8 child shifts from a stage of shishu by his or her circumstances is very relevant as it is a social construct. It helps explain why adolescents, children from the age of 10 to 19, are not viewed as a distinct phase in life.16 In Bangladesh, it is the onset of puberty which clearly delineates a normative shift from childhood to adulthood. Puberty is defined by role and responsibility as well as biological change. The more adult responsibilities a child takes, such as marriage and work, the more recognised that child is as an ‘adult’, or maybe better put, no longer a child.

This socially constructed idea of stages within childhood is further compounded by perceptions and expectations related to factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, social class, disability etc.17 In other words, ideas of what children should do and are capable to do at different ages, depends on normative beliefs related to the unique circumstances of a child.

This perception influences the role and responsibilities of caregivers and society towards a child. This is very important in the Bangladeshi context as a child’s place in family and community is derived through their relationship with someone else; the most important relationship, as also recognised in the UNCRC, being that of the child to his or her parents.

This makes a child’s place in community conditional and therefore the rights obligated to that child are also conditional.

This helps demonstrate how there are many scripts related to the perceptions of childhood and each context calls for a different script that takes into consideration empirical expectations, what do I see, and normative expectations, how do I think people expect me to act in this situation given those involved. Normative expectations are very strong and are seen in the empirical reality as guardianship is a responsibility borne on behalf of the

16 The WHO defines an adolescent as any person between the age of 10 and 19.

17 Please note that there might be, and most likely are, developmental/biological factors that helped define shishu but this was not detailed in the readings so only can be assumed

9 community.18 This sense of guardianship within what Benedict Anderson (2000) refers to as the imagined community, perpetuates actions based on normative expectations as how people situate themselves in the community, governs the terms on which different people choose what to do.19

This idea of guardianship must also be considered in relationship to the conceptualisation of childhood in relation to gender. This is very important as the responsibility of guardianship involves what is referred to in Bangla as ‘manush koreno’. Manush koreno refers to ‘making a person’.20 This process involves a social obligation for the provision of care, and ensuring a child develops appropriate skills and abilities which are deemed as socially supportive and acceptable.

Given this, the strongest determinants of characteristics of childhood are not biological but social constructs based on a traditional socialisation theory that states that socialising agents teach, serve as models and invite participation. Through their ability to offer gratification or deprivation, they induce cooperation. This is a reproduction model of social order and holds children of little account as they are passive representatives of the future generation.

Transgression from approved behaviour however, will place children in a new set of categories such as failure, deviant or neglected child and will directly influence their right to access benefits and in many cases, will only bring on deprivation. This is why it is so important to re-categorise the child.

Conception of Childhood Supported by the UNCRC

18 White, Sarah (2007) Children’s Rights and the Imagination of Community in Bangladesh. SAGE Publications, London http://chd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract114/4/505

19 Anderson, Benedict (10th ed. 2000) Imagined Communities. Verso, London

20 White, Sarah pp. 513

10 Following a child development and human rights approach, a child is any person under the age of 18. This definition makes the assumption that children are dependent whatever their age and is the basis for which childhood tends to be viewed as an undifferentiated category of those under 18.21 This stage is recognised as being period in life with increased vulnerability due to the physical and emotional immaturity of a child and therefore supports the conceptualisation of childhood as a period of dependency.22 From a purely developmental point of view, conceptualising childhood as a period of dependency and therefore vulnerability justifies paternalistic action carried out in the best interest of the child. To minimise the opportunity for abuse of power, appropriate paternalistic action is to be guided by the articles within the UNCRC to promote the best interests of the child.

This idea of childhood as solely a developmental or biological construct, ignores the factors which provide the context for childhood; this context being the interplay of the individual child with their cultural, social and economic reality.23 Therefore, from a human rights perspective, we must consider the universal acceptance of childhood as a person below 18 given their developmental vulnerability within the contextual reality that influences the behaviour of the child and the behaviour of others towards the child in specific situations.

This is very important and if we don’t consider the social construct of childhood and we only place children in a single category with stages, we are not going to be able to understand or recognise the cues that lead to scripts which help determine and sustain desirable and undesirable behaviour in different contexts.

Therefore while emphasis within the human rights approach is placed on the biological construct, or biological facts of life, it recognises the role of social function. This function

21 Ibid p. 31

22 Mason, Jan; Steadman, Bronwyn (No. 46 Autumn 1997) The Significance of the Conceptualisation of Childhood for Child Protection. Family Matters, Australian Institute of Family Studies. p. 33

23 Ibid p. 34

11 should go beyond the connection of biological and social developments (language, play, social interaction etc) and look at the role of the child’s environment and social norms in the determination of behaviour.

To allow children to navigate social norms children must be recognised as ACTING ON, as well as being acted upon, by the social world. This posits that they are ‘possessed of individual agency, as competent social actors and interpreters of the world.’ 24 This places children as subjects rather than objects of rights and having the ability to contribute actively to decisions within the specific context and takes into account variables such as age and ability.

Harmonising the Bangladeshi Concept of Childhood and the Human Rights Approach

Dencik (1989) states that in the examination of childhood literature, childhood emerges as a social construct. “This examination indicates that while childhood as a concept may be defined and bound by age, it is otherwise nebulous, changing over time and across cultures and also according to ideological perspectives.”25 This builds on La Fontaire’s (1974) conclusion that “the immaturity of children is a biological fact of life but the ways in which this immaturity is understood and made meaningful is a fact of culture.”26 It is these ‘facts of culture’ in contrast to facts of biology which may vary and which can be said to make childhood a social institution.27

It is important to have greater understanding within Bangladesh on the influence of biological factors, outlined in the developmental stages of childhood, which influence how a child can respond to situations they face in everyday life and account for developmental markers. This

24 Ibid

25 Ibid p. 35

26 James, A; Prout, A (eds) (1990) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. London: Falmer Press pp. 56

27 Mason, Jan; Steadman, Bronwyn p. 35

12 must be done alongside the awareness and recognition on the value of human rights, and more specifically child rights, as relevant and supportive of cultural values. This will help situate the debate on how far the interpretation of rights should reflect diverse cultures and how far rights can reflect prevailing norms without compromising their fundamental principles. This is because if one takes an issue, in our case child marriage, down to the social norms which upholds the practice, people can begin to see how fundamental principles upheld in human rights support culturally determined values. Through a bottom-up social norm change process which has community’s redefine childhood within an accepted human rights framework, the communities themselves can identify alternative practices, in turn, new social norms.

Conclusion

If we look at child marriage from a global perspective, we will see that practices vary across factors such as geographic, ethnic, racial and socio-economic lines. What we need to ask ourselves is do we account for this ‘as part of the social/cultural variability of childhood or do we accept that at some point, biological factors constrain the argument and compel us to invoke human rights categories such as abuse and exploitation.28

If you believe biological factors compel us to invoke human rights categories, we are compelled as practitioners to understand childhood as a social construct within communities and how these constructs undermine or support the concept of childhood as a stage of biological growth and maturity within a human rights framework. This framework, to be relevant, must be translated in local vernacular and fused to local values.29 This is why the

Kishori Abhijan project must go beyond its current interventions and compliment it with a concrete strategy to change understanding related to childhood development using a

28 Ibid p. 73

29 Gerry!

13 community participation approach. By doing this, we can initiate a process to re-categorise children, girls and boys. This in turn will influence collective empirical expectations to shift social norm change related to child marriage. The foundation is there as communities already working within the Kishori Abhijan project are cognisant of the issues and have started the shift from understanding to application. Even more so, we can build on the network of

Kishori Abhijan communities to support organised diffusion.

Recognition of the status and rights of all children – and corresponding obligations of duty bearers – implies not only a need for a different perception of childhood but also a change in the concept of guardianship. To change the societal role of guardians involves understanding the complex web of relationships that exert influence. As these relationships are multifaceted within a network structure and strongly embedded in social practice, the change process is complex. I believe a first step is to identify the social relationships, who exerts influence, of guardians as well as the social relationships of the children themselves. This involves understanding networks related to influence and could be supported by an ethnographic study. By carrying out this research using a participatory approach, we, as practitioners, will better understand how to move forward.

By fostering the required social perceptions and expectations to demonstrate societal acceptance and appreciation for children (0 to 18) as subjects of unique rights, we are in a better position to initiate community buy-in and appreciation for ending harmful practices perpetuated through the acceptance of unsupportive categorisations of children. In relation to child marriage, this would involve a deliberative approach to help communities identify the existence of alternatives and provide transparency on the individual and community’s desire to change and how the change is framed within their value system. This action is identified through what Appadurai describes as “The capacity to aspire!” 30 By allowing communities

30 Reading

14 to imagine where they can and want to go and collectively determine that gaps, both in knowledge and practice, allows for collective learning based on co-investigation; identifying gaps through a deliberative process of collective learning. This new knowledge can lead to community organisation and social action.31 This process must involve everyone in the reference group and provide an equitable approach so that the voice and interests of all are considered. This is an important step to empowerment!

31 Ibid p 2