The role of customary actors in shaping child marriage in Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Palestine and Egypt

This paper sheds light on customary practices and on conflict resolution dynamics around child marriages in several countries and communities across Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia countries. Customary actors play a key role in child-marriage. Their role lies on community legitimization and is further exacerbated in contexts of displacement where formal justice could be simply not available or not enough tailor-made to accommodate the needs or customs of migrant populations. Hence, this paper provides insights on the different ways child marriage is shaped by customary actors. It analyses 79 cases of a variety of child marriage disputes handled by customary actors in Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Egypt, Afghanistan and Palestine collected within a large quantitate action-research conducted by Tdh during 2012 and 2018.