Flying Broom Women's Communication and Research Association was founded in 2008
with the aim of spreading the perspective of gender equality and empowering women
and girls. Since 2010, the Association has been carrying out projects aimed at
preventing child marriages and protecting and promoting the human rights of girls,
conducting regional study visits, and working in cooperation, collaboration and solidarity
with civil society organisations, national and international organisations, local and global
networks and platforms working in the field of combating child marriage in Türkiye and
other countries. As a result of all these activities and the sharing of experience and
knowledge, the Association felt the need to carry its activities focused on combating
child marriage to the second decade within a programme by 2023, including how the
COVID-19 pandemic, disasters/crises/epidemics affect child marriages. Thus, the
Advocacy Programme on Combating Child Marriage was designed by the Flying
Broom Women’s Communication and Research Association. The objectives of the
programme are;
Understanding the changing dynamics of child marriage (global crises such as
climate change, migration and displacement)
Diversifying means of struggle (digital generation)
Producing information and data on the appearance of this problem in intersectional
areas (child /early/forced marriages in Roma, refugee, disabled, LGBTI+
communities)
For these purposes; monitoring and communication activities in parallel with the
objectives of the development agenda, community-based activities, reporting to
international human rights mechanisms, projects for the multi-faceted empowerment of
girls, etc. will be carried out.
In the aftermath of the Kahramanmaraş centered earthquakes on 6 February 2023, like
many rights defenders in Türkiye, we, as Flying Broom Women's Communication and
Research Association, devoted our efforts to solidarity work by participating in both
sector groups coordinated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) (such as education, protection, child protection and
gender-based violence) and civic platforms led by civil society organisations and
activists to monitor the human rights situation and urgent needs with a gender and
inclusion approach, advocate and report on feminist security for children and adults.
In this way, we have experienced and advocated that humanitarian interventions and
disaster management and preparedness are linked to rights-based actions. For
example, the criticality of the relationship between education and child protection or the
importance of monitoring human rights issues (needs and baseline) for evidence-based
response and policy planning have been proven once again.
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