In general, Bangladeshi adolescents, constrained by patriarchy and age-based hierarchies, have limited agency to voice and act on matters that concern them. This is particularly so for girls.

The low social value of girls has created a set of normative beliefs that support child marriage. In Bangladesh, young girls are of greater demand for marriage as evidenced by sayings like girls are ‘Kuri te buri’ (‘oldie at twenty’). Parents believe that their community expects them to marry off their daughters early, and it’s for her own good.

Moreover, weddings are communal events with great involvement of the community as exemplified by the common saying – ‘Jar biye tar khobornai, paraporshir ghoom nai’ (‘the bride and groom are unaware, while the neighbours are busy sleeplessly’). The communities and adolescents can become crucial agents to trigger change around adolescent rights and herald a new norm where girls below 18 are not married.

In Bangladesh, any news or declaration is commonly announced with traditional ‘Dhol’ drum to catch everybody’s attention. Since the ECM campaign bears the message of declaring Child Marriage as an unacceptable offence, it used the ‘Dhol’ drum as campaign visual mnemonic.

The campaign slogan, it followed the age-old way of protest which is commonly used in political or other protest rallies. The slogan picked up the particular rhythm and core call to action words ‘Raise your voice’ of traditional protest slogans. With it, the ECM slogan says “Balyo biye rukhte holey, awaj tolo taley taley” means “Raise the beat to end child marriage”.

The campaign call to action is depicted by a metaphoric beat of protest which referred to some specific actions i.e. Resist, Raise your voice and Report.

The campaign branding maintained three campaign properties – the protest beat, the ‘Dhol’ drum and a helpline number.

The campaign promotes prevention as a universal personal responsibility. The campaign is designed to make prevention and active rejection of child everyone’s responsibility, which aims to change the behavior of community members, and in turn the expectation of parents and caregivers from the community.

Everybody has something to do:

•Research: Learn more about the aspects/ effects of CM. •Refrain: Abstain from participating or attending any of CM in your family, community. •Resist: Resist any attempts of child marriage around you or discussion of child marriage. •Raise: Raise your voice against any planned or sudden occurring of CM in your family or neighbors. •Rally: Mobilize or connect with your family, network, community and mass to take stand against ECM, •Report: Inform/ report to respective authority about any planned or occurring of CM events within your family, friends or community

Call to action:‘Raise the beat to end child marriage’.

This campaign is being implemented in various medium, i.e. Mass media, Outdoor static, Outdoor print and Social/Digital media. Detail list of media intervention has been provided below -

• Mass media

o 8 TV spots

o 8 radio spots

o 26-episode TV drama series

o 26-episode radio drama series

o 90 mins Docu-drama [to be screened at mobile film shows

o Press ads

• Event

o 1 national launching event at national

o 2 events at sub-national locations

• Outdoor

o Posters

o Festoons

o Billboard

o Wall painting

• Social/Digital media

Digital media like Facebook, YouTube and mobile messaging will be used to promote the campaign and create an interactive platform for the adolescents and their parents

UNICEF has borne the campaign production costs while 12 TV stations are airing PSAs for free (worth $ 170,920). 5 TV channels donated free broadcast time for the drama serial (worth $ 90,785). 20 radio channels are broadcasting PSAs for free. Big news outlets shared the PSAs on their social media channels. UNFPA has contributed financial resources.

Social media has achieved 233,638,306 reaches, 166,505,559 engagements and 156,971,275 views so far. The National Helpline number under Ministry of Women and Children Affairs receives 2200 - 2500 calls per day.

The entire campaign has won over 20 awards - APAC Effie award 2018, TeleAward 2018, Social Media for Education Awards 2018, Accolade award 2017, IndieFest Film Awards and locally CommWard 2018 & 2019 till date.