ChildBride Solidarity is a women-led South Sudanese national NGO that is dedicated to ending child marriage and gender-based violence by empowering girls and young women to fulfill their true potentials through full participation in, and positive contribution to, the socioeconomic lives and political arenas of South Sudan. We empower girls and young women by creating awareness and providing skills and knowledge through workshop training, academic scholarships, leadership outreach and mentorship programs that address child marriage and gender-based violence among the Dinka, Nuer and Murle cattle-keeping communities of the Greater Jonglei region of South Sudan.

Among these pastoral communities, young girls fetch a lot of cattle in bride wealth. Thus, the high demand of cattle for payment of bride price, for prestige and for economic enrichment are the root causes of child marriage in the Greater Jonglei region. Moreover, rampant cases of biased cultural norms, abject poverty, lack of quality education and pervading insecurity due to localized and national conflicts fuel and sustain bad practices of child marriage. On the other hand, biased norms and discriminatory customs and chronic trauma from local and national conflicts contribute to rampant and enduring cases of gender-based violence against adolescent girls and young women.

Therefore, our strategy to addressing the problem of child marriage and gender-based violence in the Greater Jonglei region is by empowering girls and young women to know their rights and become agents of positive change in their communities; mobilizing families and engaging communities to change bad attitudes and biased traditions that fuel and perpetuate child marriage and gender-based violence; providing services that enable access to better education, health, trauma awareness, protection and legal services, and advocating for the development and implementation of women-friendly strong laws and policies to address child marriage and gender-based violence in South Sudan.