Attachments
Dr Aisha Hutchinson
Executive Summary
A large number of focus groups (or discussion groups) have been carried out with Syrian refugees over the past 6 years by many different organisations that have included conversations about child marriage, largely in response to research which has shown that child marriage is prevalent amongst this population in Jordan and Lebanon.
The focus groups presented in this report were completed in Jordan in August 2017 and in Lebanon in July 2018, and include both young people (boys and girls) and caregivers (mothers and fathers) from Irbid, Mafraq and Emirati Jordanian Camp (EJC) in Jordan, and from Tyre and Saida in Lebanon. Groups were facilitated by experienced local staff from Terre des Hommes (Tdh) with a total of 77 young people and 61 caregivers. All participants were Muslim and therefore spoke about Muslim marriages only. Most participants had been in Jordan for 4 to 6 years at the time and referred frequently to the impact of protracted displacement on the social processes underpinning child marriage. The overall aim of the focus groups was to better understand how young people and parents across several different Syrian refugee communities conceptualise, perceive and experience child marriage, and to identify any protective actions which families and communities take in response to child marriage. The study includes data on child marriage from people living in EJC for the first time, and it is based on discussions resulting from a vignette on child marriage for young people, and activities for the caregivers. Ethical approval for the research was granted by the University of Bedfordshire Ethics Committee.