Investing in activism: Learning from children’s actions to stop child marriage

Abstract

This article draws on child activists’ experiences in Bangladesh and Ghana, who mobilised to stop potential child marriages from their respective Child Forums and Children’s Parliaments. Case studies were undertaken with 75 child activists, 10 girls whose child marriages had been stopped, and 22 adult stakeholders. The children’s activism disrupted intergenerational relations – unsettling adults’ attitudes towards children – and depended on such relations – children were successful in stopping child marriages because they drew on critical social capital and mobilised key stakeholders. Children’s activism thus has lessons for children’s participation literature more generally, in the synergies between children’s mobilisation and intergenerational relations.