A/HRC/41/19 implementation. For instance, Save the Children reported on how it promoted girls’ education in conservative contexts, including in the Islamic Hausa region in northern Nigeria, as a way to combat child marriage. In the Sudan, a campaign conducted in Kassala State involving community dialogue with religious and cultural leaders from predominantly Muslim communities successfully contributed to the abandonment of child marriage. 32 36. Interventions also need to be culturally sensitive and context-specific. For example, as Plan International reported, humanitarian actors in Borno and Adamawa States in Nigeria have provided education and livelihood support services to children, working in partnership with local government authorities and local communities. The Government of Iraq indicated that, among measures to prevent child marriage and protect girls, it encouraged girls to continue to attend schools, using positive incentives such as opening young people’s social welfare centres to support girls in particular and conducting community dialogues. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aide Rapide aux Victimes des Catastrophes established mentoring and youth clubs to support young people and prevent child, early and forced marriage. That helped girls who were already married to access safe spaces, receive training and get equipped with the skills to cope with their situation, and allowed them to receive resources from social networks to break the cycle of violence. UNFPA reported in its submission that the Government of Yemen had adopted a package of multisectoral interventions addressing child marriage, including interventions to promote gender equality, girls’ education, enhancing employment and earning opportunities for girls, improving reproductive, maternal and child health, and community outreach activities. 2. Promoting women’s and girls’ access to protective and responsive mechanisms 37. Strengthening protection systems involves considering the broader framework that supports prevention and access to services for women and girls, including for reparation and redress. In that connection, awareness-raising and developing women’s and girls’ capacity to claim their rights and effectively access those mechanisms are essential (A/HRC/39/26, para. 58).33 38. Hotlines, alert systems and digital applications have been used to report cases. For instance, UN-Women reported that the creation by the Government of the Central African Republic of a joint rapid response and repression unit for sexual violence against women and children, the use of a hotline and the establishment of an early warning mechanism had yielded positive results in the fight against child marriage. As the Netherlands highlighted in its submission, the Women’s Refugee Commission piloted the Girls’ Roster, a mobile tool in South Sudan designed by the Population Council, to help identify girls at risk and their needs. As part of the post-disaster needs assessment in Sri Lanka, UNICEF and Save the Children consulted with at least 800 children who had been affected by the 2016 floods and landslides in a safe and enabling environment. That provided avenues for sharing experiences and giving feedback as a way to identify protection needs for providing more tailored support and assistance. 39. Safe houses or shelters for women and girls at risk or victims were another promising practice. UNICEF reported in 2017 that women and child-friendly safe spaces in Lebanon were accessed by at least 61,000 women and girls, which enabled them to discuss issues pertaining to their safety and security and plan risk mitigation strategies, and it allowed them to increase their participation in programme design. Since 2016, the Government of Yemen has been working with UNICEF to establish case management for social workers, addressing the issue of child marriage through its Ministry of Social Affairs. Multisectoral packages have been developed for social, legal, health and economic 32 33 Liv Tønnessen and Samia al-Nagar, “Interventions for the abandonment of child marriage in Sudan” in Sudan Brief (Bergen, Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2018). See also Save the Children, “Physical violence and other harmful practices in humanitarian situations”, 2016. 11