Emma Heinonen, Louise Lindfors, Sinead Sammy

Name of the project/report:
Child Marriage in Mozambique

Tell us about the report and why did you choose to write about this subject?
The report covers child marriage in Mozambique and focused on the challenges of
implementing the legislation against it that was adopted 2019. All group members are interested and devoted to children’s rights and we had the possibility to get deep insight, information and direct contact with both NGO’s and right holders due to the connection through Afrikagrupperna.

Did you work in team or independently?
We worked in team but with a distribution of tasks.

How was it to work in a team environment?
It was really inspiring and we bounced both ideas, structure, tasks and texts in our meetings and we think the team spirit attributed to a higher quality and relevance for the report.

What was challenging in the process of writing the report?
To figure out the balance between background and analysis and also to balance between legal issues/framework in relation to development issues. We worked really hard to cover the specific human rights issues while on the same time also presenting the complexity of the more social and economic conditions linked to this prevalence of child marriage. It was also challenging to cover as much as possible on program and projects/networks focused to address the issue but not getting too involved in accounting for development cooperation and multilateral program, when our purpose was to measure to what extent the implementation was hindered, due to context such as poverty, geopolitical inequality and effects of the pandemic.

What skills and experiences from previous courses in human rights where helpful during your work with the report?
The previous courses that we had last semester all gave us a good base for how to look at the issue, both from the legal point of view as well as looking at the issue in a historic perspective to understand why it looks the way it does today. The first part of the clinic course also helped us in guiding us in how to create the report. Outside of that, Louise had contact with civilsociety in Mozambique with expertise and connection to right holders which was very helpful.

What skills an experiences from this course could help you in the future?
One of the main things to take away from the experience is how you write a human rights report from start to finish, using both secondary and first hand sources.