The development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) set out to investigate a muchtouted
assumption in the child, early, and forced marriage community: that acquiring
vocational skills offers girls a pathway to empowerment, agency, and poverty
alleviation. The dRPC also set out to test the assumption that empowerment and
agency contribute to building girls’ resilience and resistance to child, early, and
forced marriage. The center sought to explore these assumptions in the context of
two ongoing projects it was conducting: Conjugal Slavery in War (CSiW) and
Partnership for Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE).