The Break Free! Alliance is a 5-year partnership programme financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the objective for adolescents to exercise their right to live free from teenage pregnancy and child marriage, supported by civil society. To achieve this objective, the Break Free! Alliance worked strengthen civil society organizations, youth-led groups and networks to lobby and advocate for improved legislation and implementation to increase girls’ agency and to promote social norm change in favour of the prevention of child marriage and teenage pregnancy. One component of the Break Free! Alliance is (operational) research to inform the alliance’s programme, for which KIT is the responsible institute.
To achieve its aim for adolescents to exercise their rights to live free from teenage pregnancy and child marriage, supported by civil society, one of the three key pathways of the Break Free! Alliance focused on decision makers to develop, resource and implement laws and policies that respond to adolescents’ needs. Community bylaws in Malawi are commonly accepted mechanisms to influence behaviour change to achieve better health and development outcomes. However, evidence shows that they can have unintended effects, and variable interpretation and enforcement. The intended effects of community bylaws on health and development outcomes remain largely unclear. Community bylaws that relate to young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) (e.g., bylaws concerning child marriage, teenage pregnancy and sexual and gender-based violence) are less studied, including from the perspective of young people.
The Royal Tropical Institute (www.kit.nl) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and PALMCoL implemented a qualitative study to determine the extent to which community bylaws in TA Chiwala in Machinga district in southern Malawi are responsive to young people’s realities and SRHR needs. PALMCoL obtained ethical