The Population Council COVID-19 study team is implementing rapid phone-based surveys of a representative sample of girls living in the catchment area of two skills-building programs. The two programs (one with UNFPA, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs; and the second with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education/DSHE) are affiliated with the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage. The overall goal of the programs is to prevent child marriage. The rapid assessment will explore how the pandemic and associated lockdown is changing girls’ experience of schooling, time use, care responsibilities and household scarcity as mediating pathways to child marriage. The objectives are to assess COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices; track changes over time; identify barriers to social distancing behavior change; and assess impact on lives and livelihoods. The multi-round survey of 960 adolescent girls includes questions on age, education, marital status, knowledge and attitudes, disruption due to school closing, risks related to violence and mental health, and resources needed during lockdown. In later rounds, we intend to include questions on service access for sexual and reproductive health and rights, stigma associated with disease acquisition, and compliance with social distancing.
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