Break Free! Mali 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. CEFMU, teenage pregnancy (TP) and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) are widespread in Mali and linked to multiple social, economic, religious and cultural drivers. Preserving the family honour by protecting a girl’s virginity and by preventing pregnancy outside marriage are often factors in decisions to marry off a girl when she reaches puberty in Mali, next to poverty as a contributing factor to CEFMU. The legal age of marriage in Mali is over the age of 16 for girls and CEFMU prevalence is 53%. 
Mali has a high prevalence of TP ( 46%) resulting often in girls’ dropout of school due to stigmatisation and leading to stress and isolation, while for married mothers, a return to school is not considered feasible given her childcare and household responsibilities. Key contributing factor to CEFMU and FGM/C is the lack of sufficient law enforcement and monitoring of this practice. 
The prevention of CEFMU and TP is more urgent than ever, as COVID-19 situation has dramatically changed the context in which adolescent girls live resulting in  increasing rates of CEFMU and TP. This crisis has further isolated and excluded adolescent girls from accessing SRHR information and services, especially concerning contraception and other essential SRH services and reduced 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. This economic downturn will likely have a large impact on the poverty levels in Mali. Because poverty is a key driver of CEFMU, these economic impacts are anticipated to increase rates of CEFMU and TP in vulnerable communities. Empowering adolescents to claim their SRHR rights, supported by CS, 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 and regional 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 YID programme (2015-2020), implemented by Plan in 7 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. 
Mali has made some effort to develop laws, policies, plans and strategies to address priority SRH issues. However, neither CM or FGM have been declared illegal and so continue to be widely practised. Implementation of policies is generally perceived to be lacking, mainly as a result of capacity and budget constraints. A key strength is what appears to be a fairly robust and vibrant civil society that serves as development partner and watchdog. However, a key challenge is the political pressure exerted by traditional and religious leaders, which has hampered the introduction of vitally important legislation regarding SRHR in the country. Youth-led organisations also participate in advocacy interventions and political decision-making processes, but mostly on national level. However, youth engagement in decision-making regarding their SRH remains limited, particularly among girls, because of the high level of parental control and social norms dictating female obedience and respectfulness.