Community Mobilization Strategy on Preventing Child Marriages among the Maasai Community, in Kenya

Child marriage is a violation of human rights and it is illegal according to the Kenyan laws. Child marriage is a barrier to personal and community growth and development in the 21st century. The victims of child marriage are denied a chance to education, economic empowerment, and safety among other excellent opportunities and this leads to perpetual poverty cycles from one generation to the next. In Maasai community, the government and many NGO’s have put forward many strategies to mitigate child marriages. These strategies include economic and social empowerment, community mobilization, education and awareness and enforcement of laws. However, in spite of having these strategies in place, cases of child marriages are still going on hence prompting the need to understand the reason why these strategies have not managed to end this vice among Maasai community in Ill Bissil Division in Kajiado County. The purpose of the study was to analyse the effects of the employed mitigating strategies in child marriages among the Maasai community in Kajiado County, Kenya. The study specifically aimed evaluating the influence of community mobilization strategy on preventing child marriages among the Maasai community in Kajiado County. The study adopted descriptive research design to collect both qualitative and quantitative primary data. The study targeted a population of 252 drawn from victims, parents, law enforcement officers, education officer; teachers, church leaders and NGO administrators. A sample size of 126 individuals was enrolled for the study.  Purposive sampling method was used to select all key informants while complete census was used to select police officers. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the individual victims who were enrolled in the study. The parents were paired with the selected victims. Teachers were purposively selected from each class. Questionnaires and interview schedule were employed as data collection instruments. Collected data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study established that there was lack of coordination between the government and stakeholders who are involved in mitigating child marriages. Religious organisations and professionals were not largely involved in mitigating child marriages. The findings of this study will inform the government and stakeholders of the reasons why mitigating strategies adopted in I’ll Bissil Division have not succeeded in preventing child marriages. This in turn will assist government and stakeholders to develop policies and intervention strategies that are relevant to curb child marriage in I’ll Bissil Division in Kajiado County. The study recommends that policies be developed to guide on the community mobilization implementation of strategies for mitigating child marriages.