Eradicating Harmful Practices

About

No harmful practice against girls and women is acceptable. Everyone has a role to play in ensuring an end to harmful traditional practices. Community members including men, women, girls, and boys with diverse backgrounds play a critical role in the protection of children in their communities.

This toolkit developed by UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs is a powerful tool for empowerment, and facilitates sustainable ownership for communities to lead their own change process through a structured and guided critical reflection and an examination of beliefs, myths, assumptions that perpetuate harmful practices.

• Role Model academy (RMA) for Adolescents: Aimed at delaying marriage through introducing an alternative rite of passage for adolescent girls and boys that de-emphasizes marriage and emphasizes personal growth, leadership development, and more equitable family life/relationships that contribute to the well-being of the community as a whole. It provides a safe and protected space for sensitive conversations (for instance, on relationships and sex). It works to delay marriage by introducing the concept of new aspirational ‘sunrise marriage’ which signifies emotional maturity, and adulthood and pre-empts a healthy and more equitable marriage. It is structured around 12 sessions and of which two will be mixed groups of girls and boys together.

• Role Model Academy (RMA) for Adults: The academy experience is intended to promote open, supportive conversations and action about difficult or sensitive topics. The goal is to build mutual empathy between partners and help understand hopes and fears and create an open dialogue to help increase child welfare and decrease the pressures for FGM and child marriage. It has 12 sessions and of which two sessions are facilitated among mixed groups of women and men together.

• Safe Space for Change in a Humanitarian setting: Aimed at reducing the vulnerability of girls ad changing family decision-making patterns through facilitating a series of facilitated conversations, held at a pace (frequency) determined by the community, where a community can source needs and concerns (particularly those that threaten community strength and resilience) and take immediate action to address those needs and concerns.