Child Marriage among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: At the Gendered Intersection of Poverty, Immigration, and Safety

Abstract

Conflict has displaced 1.5 million Syrians to Lebanon and within this context, child marriage has reportedly increased. We present a thematic intersectionality analysis of focus group discussions examining specific intersections and how they influence marriage practices: (1) immigration status and safety; (2) immigration status and economic instability; as well as (3) safety and instability, with gender as a cross-cutting theme. We aim to understand how forced displacement intersects with other, more widely recognized vulnerabilities, such as poverty, insecurity and gender, thus contributing to increased rates of child marriage with the aim of informing holistic strategies to address harmful marriage practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Child marriage
• gender
• displacement
• immigration
• Lebanon
• refugee
• Syria

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the ABAAD Resource Center for Gender Equality for facilitating the focus group discussions and for making this work possible. We would like to thank all the participants for sharing their experiences and perspectives. This work would not have been possible without the financial support of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and the World Bank Group.

Disclosure statement

None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to declare.

Notes

1 L.L. = Lebanese lira.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and the World Bank Group’s Development Marketplace for innovation on GBV prevention (in Memory of Hannah Graham). The funder had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to submit this work for publication.