Unearthing local forms of child protection: Positive deviance and abduction in Ethiopia

Abstract

This study uses Positive Deviance (PD) to understand and prevent child marriage by abduction in a community in the Southern Nations Nationalities and People's Region of Ethiopia. Marriage by abduction entails the kidnapping of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 for forced genital circumcision, rape, and marriage. PD, as a form of participatory action research, is a problem-solving approach that mobilizes a community to uncover existing yet unrecognized solutions to solve the specific problem. In this study, the community discovered that some members practice behaviors and strategies that can prevent child marriage by abduction. The results support PD application to this specific form of child marriage as well as the practice as a whole, offering an alternative to traditional behavior change methodology for social transformation.

Systematic scoping review of interventions to prevent and respond to child marriage across Africa: progress, gaps and priorities

“…Interventions to prevent sexual violence or child marriage often feature norms approaches, while work to prevent physical and emotional violence tends to focus more on developing communication skills 64. An intervention in Ethiopia cultivated positive deviance regarding marriage by abduction 65…”

Positive deviance, big data, and development: A systematic literature review

“…Most studies of this type stop at the PD inquiry stage (ie, step 3 of the PD methodology outlined above), where the uncommon, successful practices of PDs are identified, without going further into designing interventions to promote those practices and monitoring progress. For instance, in Lackovich‐Van Gorp (), a study was conducted to investigate strategies that could prevent marriage by abduction in Ethiopia. PDs were girls over 18 years old coming from very poor households who were still not married.…”

“…A total of 68% of those studies use mixed methods, 21% use quantitative methods, and 11% used qualitative methods. The normal PD approach covered studies that tackled issues including health care–associated infections (de Macedo et al, ; Marra et al, ), enhancing health outcomes of women in disadvantaged circumstances (Long et al, ), cancer prevention (Vossenaar et al, ; Vossenaar, Bermúdez, Anderson, & Solomons, ), child marriage (Lackovich‐Van Gorp, ), child rearing (Aruna, Vazir, & Vidyasagar, ), infectious disease control (Babalola, ; Babalola et al, ; Nieto‐Sanchez, Baus, Guerrero, & Grijalva, ), improving pregnancy outcomes (Ahrari et al, ), counselling for family planning (Kim, Heerey, & Kols, ), child malnutrition (Aday, Hyden, Osking, & Tomedi, ; Bolles, Speraw, Berggren, & Lafontant, ; Guldan et al, ; Kanani & Popat, ; Merchant & Udipi, ; Merita, Sari, & Hesty, ; Roche et al, ; Sethi, Kashyap, Seth, & Agarwal, ; Shekar, Habicht, & Latham, ; Shekar, Habicht, & Latham, ; Wishik & Van Der Vynckt, ), neonatal mortality (Marsh et al, ), and managing medico‐social problems through self‐care (Gidado, Obasanya, Adesigbe, Huji, & Tahir, ).…”

“…Regarding domain coverage, we found that the vast majority—89%—of the reviewed studies were in public health, with 41% focused specifically on malnutrition. Put another way, there were only four non‐health studies: two on agriculture (Birhanu et al, ; Tekle, ), one on child protection (Lackovich‐Van Gorp, ), and one on education (Zaidi et al, ). As for the geographic coverage, there are nearly 150 developing countries (OECD, ), but PD studies identified by the review encompassed only 20, with just four countries (India, Brazil, Pakistan, and Ethiopia) responsible for almost 50% of studies, and only two countries having hosted studies from more than two domains.…”