Norm-Based Advocacy and Social Change: An Analysis of Advocacy Efforts to End Child Marriage

Child, early, and forced marriage has been a persistent social problem in different parts of the world. Its impacts on the affected children, especially girls, and on their families and communities are far reaching. Momentum is now building around ending child marriage. Civil society groups working to end child marriage have secured a number of successes at different levels. How have civil society groups been able to bring about changes in policy and practice at the global, national, and local levels? And considering that child marriage is often rooted in social norms, how can civil society groups work to bring about normative change that can in turn effect social change? To address these questions, this article draws on theoretical formulations pertaining to norm-based strategies for change, and uses child marriage as an illustrative example, to show how these strategies can leverage the power of norms to generate change.