By Sheema Sen Gupta
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2025 – As the sun rises over coastal Gopalpur, Odisha, in eastern India, dozens of children prepare for school. Unfortunately, for many girls in the state, the arrival of their first period can mean the end of their school years as they face societal pressures to become brides.

Despite significant progress in recent decades, India still accounts for one-third of the world’s child brides. This share is equal to the next 10 countries combined.

“At the feast, there were some people who wanted me to become their daughter-in-law. But during that time, I did not know much about marriage or if it was good or bad. Among them, the person who wanted to marry me brought me a lehenga (Indian traditional dress). I was only 14 years old at that time.”

Child marriage is a global challenge. Worldwide, over 640 million girls and women alive today were married as children. Annually, around 12 million girls become child brides before turning 18.

In Madagascar, information sessions are key in changing minds and raising awareness about child marriage and other harmful practices. Credit: UNFPA Madagascar

For impoverished communities, child marriage is often viewed as an escape from poverty. Yet, it frequently leads to lifelong hardships like early pregnancy, exclusion from education and limited opportunities. Intersecting crises like conflict, economic instability and climate shocks further intensify the vulnerabilities of young girls.

Thankfully, effective interventions can shift societal narratives and end child marriage. For example, in 2019, the Government of Odisha, in partnership with UNICEF, launched a five-year Strategic Action Plan to end child marriage by 2030. At the heart of this initiative is Advika (“I am Unique”), a programme that empowers adolescents through education, leadership training and community engagement.

So far, it has reached 2.5 million adolescents, declared over 11,000 villages child marriage-free and prevented approximately 950 child marriages in 2022 alone.

Progress and persistent challenges

Programmes like Advika prove that child marriage is preventable. In the past 25 years, significant progress has been made in reducing child marriage globally, with 68 million child marriages averted during that time. However, child marriage still remains a sad reality for too many girls, with stark regional differences highlighting the need for tailored strategies:

• South Asia continues to drive global reductions and is on pace to eliminate child marriage within 55 years, but it still accounts for nearly half (45 per cent) of the world’s child brides — 290 million in total.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 127 million child brides, shouldering the second-largest global share (20 per cent). At its current pace, the region is over 200 years away from ending the practice.
• Latin America and the Caribbean are falling behind and are on course to have the second-highest regional level of child marriage by 2030.
• In the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, progress has stagnated after previous periods of steady improvement.

These regional disparities underscore the urgent need for intensified efforts and context-specific interventions to ensure no region is left behind in the fight to end child marriage. To meet Sustainable Development Goal 5.3 to end child marriage by 2030, progress must accelerate twentyfold.

Effective interventions for ending child marriage

We know that child marriage is preventable. A recent UNFPA-UNICEF evidence paper highlights three strategies that have proven particularly effective:

1. Increasing girls’ economic independence

Poverty is a primary driver of child marriage. Vocational training, financial literacy and cash incentives for schooling have proven successful in helping girls develop a sense of agency and economic self-sufficiency, resulting in a decreased need to marry as a child for means of financial security.

In Odisha, girls like Shilo can begin to imagine brighter futures when they feel empowered with education and skills training. Favorable job markets for women, social protection programmes with additional ‘cash plus’ services such as education, health or livelihood interventions alongside cash transfers can contribute to girls’ health and wellbeing, build the sense of agency and empower adolescent girls with a greater say in the decisions that affect them, breaking the cycle of poverty and child marriage.

2. Enhancing education and life skills

Education remains one of the most effective shields against child marriage. Studies indicate that secondary school completion could reduce child marriage by two-thirds. Education provides life skills, literacy and confidence, equipping girls to make informed choices and build supportive networks. Beyond formal education, life skills like financial planning and digital literacy can equip girls to envision futures outside of marriage.

3. Focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)

Many young girls are at risk of early marriage due to a lack of SRHR resources and support. In some areas, unintended pregnancies drive child marriage. By providing comprehensive sexuality education and access to adolescent-friendly health services, we can help girls make safe, informed and empowered choices, which delay early marriage and promote healthy development. They can also enhance girls’ awareness of their own rights, making it easier for them to resist pressures that may lead to child marriage.

Long-term investments for sustainable change

Addressing the root causes of child marriage requires long-term commitments. Challenging harmful gender and social norms and promoting gender equality are essential. Legal reforms, policy changes and targeted support for health, education and child protection sectors will reinforce these efforts and foster environments where girls are valued for more than their marital status.

As the world approaches the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+ 30) in 2025 — a visionary blueprint for achieving gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights everywhere — it’s crucial to renew our commitment to gender equality and ending violence against women and girls. We need urgent, collective action to address the pervasive harms that perpetuate gender inequality, including child marriage.

By accelerating our actions now, we can build a future where every girl is safe, educated and empowered to choose her own path. Ending child marriage is not merely a goal, it is a call for justice — for every girl, every community and every future generation.

Sheema Sen Gupta is Director of Child Protection and Migration, UNICEF. She has been Representative in Iraq and Deputy Representative in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Prior to these, she was Chief of Child Protection Programme in Somalia and in Ghana.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 25 2025 – The United Nations Refugee Agency faces devastating cuts that may eliminate 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people fleeing war, repression, hunger and climate disasters. This 75-year-old institution, established to help Europeans displaced by the Second World War, now confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, primarily due to the US foreign aid freeze – and the timing couldn’t be worse.

As CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report documents, a series of connected crisis – including conflicts, economic hardship and climate change – have created a perfect storm that threatens migrants and refugees, who face increasingly hostile policies and dangerous journeys from governments turning their backs on principles of international solidarity and human rights.

At least 8,938 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2024, making it the deadliest year on record, with many of the deaths in the Mediterranean and along routes across the Americas, including the Caribbean Sea, the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama and the extensive border between Mexico and the USA. Just last week, six people died and another 40 are missing after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean.

Such tragedies have come time again over the last year. In March 2024, 60 people, including a Senegalese mother and her baby, died from dehydration after their dinghy was left adrift in the Mediterranean. In June, US border agents found seven dead migrants in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. In September, seven people were found clinging to the sides of a boat that capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, after watching 21 other people, many of them family members, drown around them.

These tragedies weren’t accidents or policy failures. They were the predictable results of morally indefensible political choices.

The reality behind the rhetoric

The facts contradict populist narratives about migration overwhelming wealthy countries. At least 71 per cent of the world’s refugees remain in the global south, with countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia and Uganda hosting far more displaced people than most European countries. Yet global north governments keep hardening borders and outsourcing migration management to prevent arrivals. The second Trump administration has declared a ‘national emergency’ at the US southern border, enabling military deployment and promising mass deportations while explicitly framing migrants as invaders – a rhetoric that history shows can easily lead to deadly consequences.

Europe continues its own troubling trajectory. Italy is attempting to transfer asylum seekers to Albanian detention centres, while the Netherlands has proposed sending rejected asylum seekers to Uganda, blatantly disregarding the state’s human rights violations, particularly against LGBTQI+ people. The European Union is expanding controversial deals with authoritarian governments in Egypt and Tunisia, effectively paying them to prevent migrants reaching European shores.

Anti-migrant rhetoric has become a common and effective electoral strategy. Far-right parties have made significant gains in elections in many countries by campaigning against immigration. Demonising narratives played a key role in Donald Trump’s re-election. The mobilisation of xenophobic sentiment extends beyond Europe and the USA, from anti-Haitian rhetoric in the Dominican Republic to anti-Bangladeshi campaigning in India.

Civil society under siege

Civil society organisations providing humanitarian assistance are increasingly being criminalised for their work. Italy has made it illegal for search-and-rescue organisations to conduct more than one rescue per trip, imposes heavy fines for noncompliance and deliberately directs rescue vessels to distant ports. These measures have achieved their intended goal of reducing the number of active rescue ships and contributed to the over 2,400 migrant drownings recorded in the Mediterranean in 2024 alone. Tunisia’s president has labelled people advocating for African migrants’ rights as traitors and mercenaries, leading to criminal charges and imprisonment.

Despite mounting obstacles, civil society maintains its commitment to protecting the human rights of migrants and refugees. Civil society groups maintain lifesaving operations in displacement settings from the Darién Gap to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Legal aid providers navigate increasingly complex asylum systems to help people access protection. Community organisations facilitate integration through language instruction, job placements and social connections. Advocacy groups document abuses and push for accountability when state authorities violate migrants’ human rights.

But they’re now operating with drastically diminishing resources in increasingly hostile environments. Critical protection mechanisms are being dismantled at a time of unprecedented need. The implications should alarm anyone concerned with human dignity. If borders keep hardening and safe pathways disappear, more people will attempt dangerous journeys with deadly consequences. The criminalisation of solidarity risks eliminating critical lifelines for the most vulnerable, and dehumanising rhetoric is normalising discrimination and institutionalising indifference and cruelty.

A different approach is possible

Rather than reactive, fear-based policies, civil society can push for comprehensive approaches that uphold human dignity while addressing the complex drivers of migration. This means confronting the root causes of displacement through conflict prevention, climate action and sustainable development. It also means creating more legal pathways for migration, ending the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance and investing in integration support.

There’s a need to challenge the fundamental assumption that migration is an existential threat rather than a manageable reality than requires humane governance, and an asset to receiving societies. Historically, societies that have integrated newcomers have greatly benefited from their contributions – economically, culturally and socially.

In a world of unprecedented and growing global displacement, the question isn’t whether migration will continue – it will – but whether it will be managed with cruelty or compassion. As CIVICUS’s State of Civil Society Report makes clear, the treatment of migrants and refugees serves as a litmus test: the way societies respond will prove or disprove their commitment to the idea of a shared humanity – the principle that all humans deserve dignity, regardless of where they were born or the documents they carry.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected].

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Sudan’s diverse crops and agricultural heritage are at risk of being lost. The ongoing conflict in Sudan is claiming lives and threatening livelihoods and food security. In the chaos of conflict, scientists like Ali Babiker are fighting to protect Sudan’s future food security—not with weapons, but with seeds. In a move to safeguard its agricultural […]

By Michael Stanley-Jones
RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, Canada, Mar 25 2025 – The central role Indigenous Peoples and local communities in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification has gained widespread recognition over the past decade. Indigenous Peoples’ close dependence on resources and ecosystems, exceptional tradition, and ancestral knowledge are invaluable assets for the sustainable management of our planet’s natural resources.

Michael Stanley-Jones

Globally, Indigenous Peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least ~38 million km2 of land across 87 countries or politically distinct areas on all inhabited continents. This represents over 25% of the world’s land surface and intersects with about 40% of all terrestrial protected areas and 37% of remaining natural lands. At least 36% of Intact Forests Landscapes are within Indigenous Peoples’ lands, making these areas crucial to the mitigation action needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.

The international community has highlighted prominently the importance of the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to achieving the goals of the ʻRio Conventions’ – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

In 2017, the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC emphasized the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in achieving the targets and goals set out in the Convention, the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, while recognizing their vulnerability to climate change. COP23 established the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform to promote the exchange of traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems, as well as to strengthen their representatives’ engagement in the UNFCCC process.

UNCCD followed in 2020, launching an Indigenous Peoples’ dialog on climate change, biodiversity and desertification. Canada, in coordination with 16 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Member States, launched in 2020 the Group of Friends of Indigenous Peoples in Rome, chaired by Ambassador Alexandra Bugailiskis, who currently serves as Chair of the UNU-INWEH International Advisory Committee. Working at the intersection of the Rio Conventions, UNU-INWEH especially addresses the theme of health and food security vis-a-vis Indigenous Peoples.

The adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by the CBD in December 2022 sought to ensure traditional knowledge, innovations, practices and technologies of indigenous peoples and local communities are available and accessible to guide biodiversity action.

Not all has been clear skies and smooth sailing, however.

UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice reported in 2024 that there exists “a fundamental misalignment between the prevailing global approach to addressing climate change and the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities on the changing climate.”

The 476.6 million Indigenous Peoples, making up 6.2 per cent of the global population, represent “a rich diversity of cultures, traditions and ways of life based on a close relationship with nature” and should not be viewed as homogeneous groups.

Moreover, Indigenous Peoples and local communities are often perceived primarily as vulnerable, a focus which overshadows the rich knowledge systems, cultural values and practices of these communities. The report recommended shifting the narrative around Indigenous Peoples and local communities from vulnerability to nature stewardship and climate leadership.

The importance of emphasizing the positive contribution of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to achieving the goals of the Rio Conventions cannot be underestimated.

We should not lose sight of the ends which traditional, Indigenous and local knowledge and strengthened participation serve, namely, to foster stronger and more ambitious climate action by Indigenous Peoples that contributes to the ultimate achievement of the objectives of the Conventions.

Toward this end, in a landmark decision at CBD COP 16 in Cali, Colombia, in October-November 2024, Parties adopted a new Programme of Work on Article 8(j) and other provisions of the Convention related to indigenous peoples and local communities. This transformative programme sets out specific tasks to ensure the meaningful contribution of Indigenous Peoples towards achieving the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of biological diversity, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits.

The Climate Convention COP29 meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024 decided to extend the mandate of the Facilitative Working Group of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform. It further invited Parties to provide simultaneous interpretation into languages other than the official languages of the United Nations at meetings of its Facilitative Working Group and mandated events under the Platform, a step which greatly opens up opportunities for the community to engage in climate, biodiversity and desertification action.

The UNCCD COP16 followed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December 2024 by holding its first-ever Indigenous Peoples Forum, spotlighting the invaluable contributions of Indigenous Peoples to land conservation and sustainable resource management.

A more inclusive and participatory process engaging with Indigenous Peoples will serve to strengthen the Rio Conventions and enhance their chances of success. This is something worth championing in the challenging times the world is facing today.

Michael Stanley-Jones is an Environmental Policy and Governance Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and served in the UN Economic Commission for Europe and UN Environment Programme in Geneva and Nairobi from 2004 to 2022.

IPS UN Bureau

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