Terms of Reference (ToR)
Research on
 “Pathways towards Economic Empowerment for the Early Married Girls”

Background and Context of the Research

Introduction
           
Terre des Hommes Netherlands (TdH NL) is an international, non-profit, non-government development organization based in the Netherlands and registered with the Government of Bangladesh. It’s a child rights based organization and works to prevent child exploitation, remove children from exploitative situations and to ensure these children’s development in a safe environment. To bring about the desired change and create an environment in which children are protected, long-term causes and medium-term barriers for change are analyzed, as well as the potential to bring about change. Within the context, TdH NL identify key actors that can play a constructive role in this change process, including children, families and communities, the private sector, government, law enforcement agencies and Civil Society Organization (CSOs).
   
In Bangladesh, TdH NL works to prevent child exploitation in collaboration with government, development partners, NGOs and networks. IMAGE Plus is one of the flagship projects of TdH NL, which is directly being implemented by the organization under the child abuse/SRHR program. This project is working for the empowerment of early married girls (EMGs) in Bangladesh. The project span is from December 2016 to December 2020.

From the starting of IMAGE, it has been found that, EMGs are deprived from their rights to be accessed to economic activities and establish them as economically empowered. This situation is more challenging from the national context of Bangladesh though women is a powerful economic/labor force especially the young women of the country. Nevertheless, only 36.3% of women in Bangladesh are in labor force, which is significantly lower than the rates of male labor force participation . According to the mid-term review of IMAGE Plus, it has been found that only 21% EMGs are involved in IGA activities (IMAGE Plus MTR, 2019). This is the high time to find out the current situation of women to be economically empowered including their needs, challenges and opportunities to be reflected in the future initiatives for women's economic empowerment. For the empowerment of EMGs, economic opportunities is in need to be analyzed

TdH NL is going to conduct a research on women’s economic empowerment in the context of EMGs based on IMAGE Plus experience in the project areas. The objective of the research is to explore the current situation of EMGs’ regarding their access to the economy and how economic empowerment can change their life status in IMAGE plus areas focusing EMGs.

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