Child Marriage in Southeast Asia

The colorful local culture and dramatic landscapes of the area are a tourist attraction, but behind this vista of beauty is the little known custom of hai pu, which translates to “pull wife”.

“I was on my way home from school. Together with three men, this boy caught me and tied me up. They carried me to the boy’s house and locked me in a small room for three days. His parents brought alcohol and money to my brother’s house. My brother accepted the price and I became the boy’s wife.”

This is the story of 12-year-old May, a member of the Hmong ethnic group from northern Vietnam’s mountainous Ha Giang province.

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The girls of Hatibandha: See life through their eyes

When you're 13, you have your whole life ahead of you – school, university, your career, family and your friends. Life is full of potential and your future is vast. But when you're 13 and living in Hatibandha, Bangladesh life looks different, especially for girls.

Life isn't easy for girls living in Hatibandha. Located in northern Bangladesh, reaching secondary schools and health clinics is difficult. The walk can take hours and during monsoon season, the commute is only possible by boat.

As a result, the majority of girls will drop out of elementary school and marry while they're young. Lacking a basic education, these girls have little chance at becoming independent women and breaking the cycle of poverty in their families and community. 

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Silent suffering

The psychosocial impact of war, HIV and other high-risk  situations on girls and boys in West and Central Africa.

The regions of West and Central Africa are home to ever-growing numbers of suffering children. These are children who live on the streets, who are trafficked and exploited as cheap labour, neglected or sexually abused, or who are forced into combat in a civil war.

To learn more about the impact of these difficult circumstances on children, Plan’s West African Regional Office, in partnership with Family Health International, initiated a five-country study entitled ‘Psychosocial support to children in difficult circumstances’.

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Welcome to the community of Hatibandha, Bangladesh

Imagine living in a community where only 7% of the students attending secondary school are girls. Now try to imagine living in a community where 90% of girls are married before the age of 18.

It’s a reality that 8,900 girls, men, women and their children living in the rural community of Hatibandha face every day.

“We are ready to do anything to improve the lives of our children,” says Hasena, mother of five children. “We need support to build our house and get educational materials for our children.”

That’s why we’re excited to introduce you to our newest community you can sponsor, Hatibandha, Bangladesh. The lives of thousands of children and their families in Hatibandha will change forever, thanks to the generous support of donors like you!

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Keeping mothers and their newborns alive

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 800 women die every day due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Only 1% of these deaths occur in high-income countries.

That means that 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries. But the majority of these deaths are preventable through simple, cost-effective interventions.

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Plan alumni share the secret of their success

More than 6,000 former sponsored children from Zimbabwe have formed a network to share their skills and experience with the next generation.

“Through Plan’s educational and sponsorship programme, we managed to get the best investment in life – education,” says Edwin Sithole, now a trained journalist and co-ordinator of the Plan Alumni Network. “We discovered our passion, pursued our dreams and achieved a lot, hence our desire to give back to the community.”

The group came together as a result of Plan Zimbabwe’s silver jubilee celebration in September 2011. The 6,000 members are all former sponsored children with a wide range of expertise and professional and technical qualifications which they aim to pass on to children, especially those from disadvantaged communities.

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Hard work, long hours and little pay

This research on tobacco farms in Malawi reveals that child labourers, some as young as 5, are suffering severe physical symptoms from absorbing up to the equivalent of 50 cigarettes a day through their skin.

As the tobacco industry continues to shift its production to developing countries, more vulnerable children are being exposed to these hazardous working conditions.

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Børn red stormen af

Da orkanen ”Mahasen” ramte Bangladesh i sidste uge, blev de fleste børn og familier skånet. Det gjorde de blandt andet fordi, der var gode beredskabsplaner, som børnene havde været med til at udarbejde.

Børn er de mest udsatte, når katastrofen rammer, og Plan arbejder netop for, at børn involveres i at forebygge katastrofer. I dag har vi sendt vores eksperter i katastrofeberedskab til et globalt FN-møde i Geneve. På mødet præsenterer Plan en ny undersøgelse, hvor 600 børn i 21 lande argumenterer for, at børn skal høres, når der laves planer for katastrofeberedskab.

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Syrian refugee crisis: Your help is needed for the children of Syria

You’ve probably heard about the crisis in Syria that is affecting millions of people. In the past few months the situation there has worsened, and more and more children are suffering every day.

To date, 6.8 million Syrians have been affected by the crisis. As a result, nearly 4.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and as many as 1.4 million have fled Syria all together, registering as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt.

Due to the conflict:

• 5,000 people are fleeing violence every day, half of them children
• 56% of the country’s hospitals are damaged
• 78% of ambulances are damaged

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Children Must Have a Say in Disaster Risk Reduction Plans

Plan wants children to have a greater say in helping to reduce disaster risk – and is bringing their voices to international policy makers.

During disasters, children often face injury, illness, separation from their families, interruption to their education and an increase in child labor and trafficking, giving them a unique insight into how to avoid these risks.

Plan’s Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) team will advocate that DRR work must listen to children and prioritize the specific risks posed to them during a global debate on disaster risk reduction at a major UN event later this month.


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Minimum standards for child protection in humanitarian action

Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually. In humanitarian settings, children are also vulnerable to being killed or injured, orphaned, separated from their families, recruited into armed groups, or trafficked.

These minimum standards - drafted with input from 400 individuals from 30 agencies in over 40 countries - are aimed at those working in child protection or related areas of humanitarian action.

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Protecting Street Children in Egypt

The street children phenomenon in Egypt emerged in the 1980s during a time of urban growth and a deteriorating economic situation.


Today, it is difficult to estimate the exact number of street children in Egypt, but experts believe the number is between 1 and 2 million with populations located mainly in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. Street children are considered amongst the poorest and most marginalized groups within their communities, as they do not have access to basic community services. The majority of street children are between the ages of 12 and 16 and 1 in 4 of these children are girls.

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Cambodian students set to hit world stage at major disaster summit

Two Plan-supported students will be flying the flag for Cambodia to share their experiences of disasters at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction* in Geneva, Switzerland, 19-23 May.

Seventeen-year-old Hengmeang and 18-year-old Sophoeurn will be making the trip overseas to share their experiences and opinions - including at the Resilient Future We Want high level side event, which is being organised by the Children in Changing Climate coalition, including Plan International, Save the Children and World Vision.

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Plan International Pulls Out of Pibor, South Sudan, Amid Heavy Fighting

Child’s rights organization Plan International (Plan) said today it had suspended operations and pulled non-essential staff out of Pibor County in South Sudan’s Jonglei State because of rising insecurity amid heavy fighting between rebel forces led by David Yau Yau and the South Sudan Army (SPLA).

Plan’s Country Director in South Sudan, Gyan Adhikari, said the decision to withdraw non-essential staff was “a precautionary measure” following the advice of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).

Tension has been rising in Pibor amidst unconfirmed reports that the David Yau Yau forces had the reportedly seized the town of Boma in Jonglei State a few days ago after heavy fighting with the South Sudan Army.

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Case study: Escaping life on the streets

There are 680,000 street children in Bangladesh and nearly half of them are aged under 10. Many of these children struggle to find food, suffer from abuse and have no access to education or health facilities.

Since 2002, Plan's drop-in centres have been helping children to escape life on the street by providing a secure and healthy living environment where they can stay. In addition to general support, the centres run classes in subjects such as literacy, music, art and drama, while older children receive vocational skills training.

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The youth bulge: what is it?

Children and young people make up 50% of the world’s population. And of the 1.2 billion people globally aged 15–24, around 1 billion live in developing countries. 

This is known as the 'youth bulge'. 

The youth bulge is often seen as a negative issue. It looms on the horizon as a problem no one quite knows how to deal with and is most pronounced in Asia, the Pacific and Africa – the poorest regions in the world. Large numbers of young people have been linked to high unemployment, civil unrest and political protest, as well as issues such as teen pregnancy, homelessness and HIV. 


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A Plumbing Course Changes Beatrice's Life

In 2011, Beatrice was just another statistic. As one of the 29 percent of young women affected by youth unemployment in Rwanda, her dream was not to have a white collar job in the city like many of her peers, but to become a skilled plumber.

“I am an orphan, my father died in 1999, and I remained with my Mother and 4 siblings. We barely survived by growing beans and cassava on a very small piece of land, and working for our neighbors to earn money for food. Neither I, nor my mother, could afford to pay school fees for my younger siblings,” she explains.


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Urbanization: Can we survive its risks?

At a population count of 2,791,140, Toronto has recently become the fourth largest city in North America. Over the years, Plan has done a lot of thinking about rapid population growth and cities. Especially since 2008, when the world crossed a major threshold for the first time in human history, with more than 50% of the world’s population now living in urban centres.

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Protecting children from harmful practices in plural legal systems

Millions of children continue to suffer from various forms of harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, early and forced marriage, female infanticide, bonded labour and accusations of witchcraft.

The UN Study on Violence against Children urged states to prohibit by law all forms of violence against children, including harmful practices.

This report reviews positive legislative developments in different regions of the world, with a special emphasis on Africa, to strengthen children’s legal protection from violence as a result of harmful practices, and addresses the interplay between statutory, customary and religious laws.

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3 ways YOU can help keep children healthy

There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our children, especially if it meant keeping them healthy. But millions of children around the world go without essential health services that could save their lives. 

According to World Health Organization (WHO), in 2011 alone, nearly 6.9 million children under the age of five died, and nearly half of these deaths could be prevented or treated with access to simple and affordable interventions.

Pneumonia, pre-term birth complications, diarrhoea and malaria cause 50% of the 6.9 million deaths in children.

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Promoting rights and accountabilities in African communities

Benon is a married man with four children. In November 2011 at a Plan-supported community meeting he was selected by his village to take on a new community volunteer role to work with Plan’s Promoting Rights and Accountabilities in African Communities (PRAAC) project in Uganda.

Soon after, Benon became one of 42 new community volunteers in Lira district who participated in a five-day training workshop on human rights and law. The workshop covered Uganda’s laws on domestic violence, land, marriage and divorce, succession and inheritance. 

Here Benon tells Plan PRAAC Uganda staff member Julius Batemba his story.

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Ensuring girls' right to education in Cameroon

Discrimination robbed Hawou Adamou of her right to an education. Today, as the President of the Plan-supported Hausa Women's Association for Development in Cameroon, she reflects on her experiences and how she's helping to change girls' lives.

My name’s Hawou Adamou. I’m the president of the Hausa Women’s Association for Development (AFHADEV). After 38 years, I am going to share my story. It’s not extraordinary, thousands of other girls and women in Cameroon live similar lives in silence. I speak for them too.

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Case study: 13 and bride

Meet Mariama, 13, who has just discovered she is about to join the 40% of girls in Niger who marry before they are 15.

Early marriage can be catastrophic for girls. Many are pulled out of education and pregnancy can cause serious long-term problems - such as fistula, which leaves girls incontinent and in constant pain.

Plan is working with girls, their parents and communities to educate them about the consequences of child marriage, particularly the dangers to a girl's health if she gives birth before her body is ready.

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Urgent support for children in northern Mali

We are expanding our humanitarian operation to northern regions of Mali where the conflict began and which have been inaccessible up to now. We are now working in Timbuktu. Children’s needs are great here where the troubles have been ongoing for over a year. Education and protection are priorities.

The overall situation in Mali remains quiet in the South and central regions while in the North, there are still some security issues – and there are fears about food shortages to come. Presidential elections in the country are scheduled for July.

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Wedding Busters: Stopping child marriage

Meet the Wedding Busters - a group of Bangladeshi children who have successfully stopped 7 child marriages in their community.

In Bangladesh, 66% of girls get married before they are 18. All too often they are pulled out of school and lose out on their dreams.

Supported by Plan, the Wedding Busters swing into action as soon as they hear news of a child wedding - spreading their message on girls' rights through education, theatre, and door-to-door visits with members of the community.

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Plan's New Program Enables Jakartan Street Children to Obtain Birth Certificates

Despite birth registration being a basic right, many children in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, are still missing out, according to a new Plan study. Street children are among the most affected as high costs and excessive red tape keep parents from registering their children’s births.

Last year, Plan surveyed more than 500 families living in non-permanent housing and slum dwellings in 5 parts of Jakarta as part of a global movement to highlight the everyday realities faced by street children living in some of the world’s busiest cities.

"Nearly two-thirds of parents surveyed said they had never tried to apply for a birth certificate for their children," said Peter la Raus, Director of Plan Indonesia.

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Protection: what we do

Protecting children and young people from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence is central to everything we do.

In 2012, Plan provided child protection training for 149,686 community members and 35,625 staff of partner organisations across the world.

Many children experience abuse every day from people they know and trust and it threatens their survival, development and participation in society.

Plan was actively involved in the 2006 United Nations Study on Violence Against Children, which estimates that worldwide:

• 40,000,000 children are abused each year
• 150,000,000 girls and 73,000,000 boys experience sexual violence
• 1,800,000 children are involved in commercial sexual exploitation and child abuse images
• 1,200,000 children are victims of trafficking.

Plan does more than introduce short-term fixes for these problems. We raise awareness of children’s right to protection and work closely with families and communities.

We also deliver targeted programmes to address specific protection issues - such as child trafficking, corporal punishment in schools, female genital cutting and child marriage.

At local, national and international level we work to influence policies and make sure there is an adequate legal framework to protect children.

Plan Brings Clean Water to Malawian Residents

Every day in the Kamtsizi and Mazaza villages, of Njewa, Malawi, families turn on taps at shared water points and out flows clean, fresh water for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing. This may seem unremarkable, but not too long ago, this wasn’t the case.

For years, residents of these two villages had been using contaminated water from unprotected sources such as streams and dambos, the Malawian name for wetlands. This water would be used for cooking and drinking.

“We suffered from recurrent bouts of diarrhea due to lack of safe water and proper sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices,” says Henderson Mbendera, secretary for the Kamtsizi-Mazaza Village Health Committee.

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Help for children affected by building collapse in Bangladesh

Plan and Save the Children have set up helpdesks for children with parents caught up in a building collapse in Bangladesh. Hundreds are still missing after the Rana Plaza, which housed clothing factories near Dhaka, crashed to the ground last week, killing more than 300 people.

Around 3,500 people were thought to be in the garment factories when the building collapsed. More than 2,000 people have been rescued, while around 1,200 are listed as injured.

Trained staff will man five special information points around the clock. “We are doing everything we can to get young people the information they need and to reconnect them with surviving parents and family members,” says MingMing Evora, Country Director for Plan in Bangladesh.

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