A social-ecological examination into the research, policy and health service delivery environment related to early marriage and sexual and gender-based violence among youth in Jordan

Abstract

Background: The determinants of sexual-and gender-based violence (SGBV) and early marriage are embedded across different levels of the social ecological system, including at the individual, family, community, and policy levels. In Jordan and the Middle East, SGBV, honor killing, and early marriage are priority public health and human rights issues that often overlap, and affect a significant percentage of youth. Jordan is home to a large number of refugees from across the Middle East, who may be even more vulnerable to these forms of violence than the local youth. The purpose of this analysis is to 1) synthesize the existing literature and 2) present the perspectives of key stakeholders to identify research gaps, programmatic lessons learned, and opportunities for policy change from an ecological perspective at the individual, community, health-system, and policy/legal levels. Methods: This study includes 1) a systematic literature review of both published and unpublished literature since 2008 and 2) focus group discussions (FGDs) with key stakeholders representing 18 international and local governmental and non-governmental organizations. Results: The literature review included 27 documents. Stakeholder discussions highlighted important research and policy gaps. Prevalence estimates of SGBV, honor killing, and early marriage vary across sources; however, all of them indicate that they remain important issues for youth in Jordan. Several sources indicate that early marriage has been increasing in Jordan since the beginning of the war in Syria, especially among Syrian refugees. Refugee youth are particularly vulnerable to SGBV and early marriage given the worsening economic situation in Jordan. The norms, attitudes, and practices that support SGBV in Jordan appear to be reinforced within families and communities. Despite ongoing programs, SGBV services are limited, especially for youth, and there is little awareness of service availability amongst target populations. Laws and policies continue to offer legal justification for SGBV, honor killing, and early marriage.

Child Marriage in Relation to the Syrian Conflict: Jordanian and Syrian Adolescents' Perspectives

“…Several participants in our study also described that many families are resorting to marriages outside of the Syrian community and, in particular, men from other wealthier countries to expand their family's supportive network and the social, institutional, and financial resources available to them. This finding was consistent with previous studies [17,22,23]. At the same time, however, our results show that living in host communities has a positive influence and offers some parents and girls the opportunity to question social expectations and social norms and to ultimately, openly refuse or reject CM.…”

“…Although the shifts in social norms enabled some participants in this study to exercise agency in decisions related to their marriage are encouraging and may indeed represent an opportunity for intervention, the discussion about agency in this setting may be far more complicated. In a setting where girls may be subject to extreme consequences, including honor killing, for even minor transgressions against what is socially acceptable [17], efforts to improve girls' agency must be carefully implemented and conducted in tandem with efforts to change the overarching harmful social norms that limit their agency. Gender norms that limit girls' participation must also change along with those that relate to marriage, to enable girls and young women to exercise full agency in their lives.…”

“…Furthermore, the strain on the school system has posed challenges in Jordanian host communities, and some girls have faced disruption in their educations as a result, which has been found to be important in other settings with Syrian refugees [6]. Within the domain of resources, financial insecurity has been exacerbated by the conflict and drives parents to offload their daughters due to economic vulnerabilities within the household, benefit from their dowry, or reap the social and economic benefits of marrying outside of the refugee community [16,17]. At the social level, traditional family and social structures have disintegrated because of the death of parents and the breakup of families [9,11,16,18], leaving families to rely on marriage to reestablish some of these social connections and to cling onto cultural traditions, gender norms, and family values that such as those relating to girls' role in producing children and prearranged marriages within families.…”

Trends of maternal waterpipe, cigarettes, and dual tobacco smoking in Jordan. A decade of lost opportunities

“…Assessing ever-married women may limit generalizability. Still, in a conservative society, like Jordan, marriage outside wedlock is punishable by law and puts women at risk of honor killing [ 65 , 66 ]. This may eliminate the generalizability limitation of the results.…”

‘No One Should Be Terrified Like I Was!’ Exploring Drivers and Impacts of Child Marriage in Protracted Crises Among Palestinian and Syrian Refugees

“…Girls who marry before the age of 18 are more likely to experience violence, especially when the spousal age gap is large (Clark et al 2017;Al-Modallal 2012). Another study found that girls who were married before 18 were twice as likely to report domestic violence and also showed signs of severe depression (Gausman et al 2020). In the Gaza Strip, 63% of early-married girls were exposed to at least one type of violence, compared with 51% of older women (PCBS 2019b).…”