Youth-led research. Child marriage and sexuality: Results and recommendations from the MTBA Learning Project   

To ensure young people’s voices and perspectives were represented in the research focusing on the significant links between child marriage and the norms and values around the sexuality of girls, youth-led research trajectories were carried out by MTBA’s Learning Project. In these trajectories, young researchers were themselves in charge of choosing the research focus, data collection tools, data analysis, and drawing conclusions and relevant lessons learned. Each research trajectory explored the journeys of young girls and women (14-18 years old) and stakeholders in their social circles as they navigate the social norms and practices around adolescent sexuality and early marriage. This paper shows the research results which helped to confirm, expand and often challenge the common knowledge shared by these stakeholders.