Break Free! Malawi SUMMARY
Millions of young people don’t have access to appropriate, gender-responsive, quality SRHR education, information and services. This makes them vulnerable to unintended pregnancies, often followed by child marriage (CM). The Break Free! programme empowers adolescents and young people to make their own free and informed choices to speak out and have control over their SRH and lives. BF! is tackling root causes of gender inequality,  unequal power relations and discriminatory social norms, systems, structures, policies and practices, supported by civil society and improved legislation. The project will be implemented between 2021 and 2025 by the Break Free! Consortium consisting of Plan International Netherlands, SAT and FAWE,  technical partners KIT and RMT in collaboration with Netherlands’ Embassies. It will be carried out in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and a regional Pan-African component to sustain the country programmes. 42% of women in Malawi aged 15–49 years were married before 18 years of age.  COVID-19 situation has dramatically changed the context in which adolescent girls live resulting in increasing levels of GBV, increasing unpaid care work, rising sexual exploitation, decreased access to education and increasing rates of CEFMU and TP (an additional 20,000 CMs and 40.000 TP’s recorded at the onset of Covid-19)  . This crisis has further isolated and excluded adolescent girls in remote areas from accessing SRHR information and services, especially concerning contraception and other essential SRH services. Lockdown restrictions and enforcement of COVID-19 prevention methods have led to an increase in harmful practices such as CEFMU reducing the effectiveness of referral pathways for essential services, and resulting in poorer SRH outcomes for girls. The loss of employment and income by parents and caregivers is expected to increase girls’ school dropout and girls’ vulnerability to sexual exploitation, resulting in TP and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), including HIV. 
Due to poverty, families tolerate all sorts of CM practices  that involve lobola  payments. Traditional leaders and parents drive these practices. In areas close to the borders, young men and adolescent boys drop of school and migrate finding better economic opportunities, with the consequence that  more unprotected transactional sex with girls and young women is seen, resulting in TP.
Initiation ceremonies also fuel CM among both boys and girls and  these ceremonies are characterised by misinformed sexual education and associated with readiness for sex and marriage. Harmful cultural practices  seem to overshadow and permeate the ‘porous’ enforced laws. Empowering adolescents to claim their SRHR rights, supported by civil society, will be achieved if  CSOs, youth-led groups and networks are strengthened to lobby and advocate for improved legislation and to promote social norm change in favour of the prevention of CEFMU/TP. 
Education opportunities and a community supportive of girls’ education will stimulate adolescent girls at risk of TP/CEFMU to access and remain in school, while promoting the re-entrance of girls who have discontinued school due to pregnancy. In order to create a supportive and improved socio-cultural environment that promotes education for girls and SRHR for young people, relevant gate keepers, teachers and parents will be made aware of the importance of adopting attitudes favourable to keeping girls in school. 
Supporting CSOs to organise, participate and communicate enables CSOs to claim better education and SRHR outcomes for girls and young women, and influence decision-making processes. Duty bearers and decision-makers are made aware of and encouraged to take action to fulfil the education needs of girls based on the effective lobby and advocacy of civil society. Decision-makers at local, national, regional and continental level will be sensitized to build linkages between the levels resulting that civil society is able to elevate issues to higher decision-making levels, and vice versa, they can hold lower-level policy makers and duty bearers accountable for implementing decisions taken at higher levels. This will be enabled by establishing participation and accountability mechanisms between decision-makers/duty bearers and civil society with the support of enhanced youth agency. The programme is a.o. based upon the results and findings of the 18+ ECM ( 2014-2015) and YID programme (2015-2020), implemented by Plan in Malawi and 6 other countries, combined with experience of FAWE and SAT’s programmes on this theme. All partners have experience on improving legislation and policies on CEFMU and implementation thereof, through L&A and enhancing adolescent’s skills to claim their SRH rights, quality of SRH education, information and service provision. This resulted a.o. into the development of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage, served as legal framework for national law and policy-makers and was used as civil society (CS) advocacy tool across the SADC region. It resulted as well in strengthened CSOs, youth hubs and girls clubs, which have become promoters of ASRHR. 

Despite the number of SRH services and programmes available, it appears utilisation of these services remains low among the youth of Malawi and lack of education initiatives for parents and caregivers on the benefits of SRH services is a huge barrier to these services being accepted by communities. CSO participation in political decision making on adolescents’ SRHR and education needs is weak.

Although there are many channels and space  available for CSOs and/or youth-led CSOs to constructively engage in policy and decision-making process, CSO efforts tend to be clustered in a few districts in the country and support is dependent on the views that government officials have on certain topics. Furthermore there is limited capacity on social accountability, budget tracking and lack of robust mechanisms and structures to bring ASRHR issues to national level.