426959

Feminine Representation and Social Death in Child Marriage Humanitarian Discourse: A Gender-Based Social Actor Analysis

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Last updated: 11 May 2025

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Abstract

Child marriage is considered by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to be a form of modern slavery. Thus, studying how victims of child marriage are represented in UNICEF discourse is crucial for uncovering to what extent it succeeds in achieving its aims, reflecting reality, and highlighting the causes of such phenomenon. This gender-based analysis study uses Critical Discourse Analysis and Van Leeuwen's (2008) social actor representation framework to analyze the social actor strategies employed by UNICEF in its 2021 child marriage report. Králová's (2015) conceptual framework of social death is also used to show how modern slavery victims are represented as socially dead. The analysis concludes that UNICEF discourse excludes the masculine social actors who are in charge of marrying young girls off. Instead, it activates the feminine identities; hence, focusing only on the victims while neglecting the social actors responsible for the practice of child marriage. Moreover, the activation strategies identified support the view that victims of child marriage are represented as socially dead.

DOI

10.21608/opde.2025.426959

Keywords

(social actor analysis, UNICEF reports, child marriage, social death, feminine representations)

Authors

First Name

Mohamed Mazen

Last Name

Galal

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Affiliation

Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Suez University, Suez, Egypt

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First Name

Amal A. E.

Last Name

Gami

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Affiliation

Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Suez University, Suez, Egypt

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Volume

89

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

55624

Issue Date

2025-01-01

Receive Date

2025-05-10

Publish Date

2025-01-01

Page Start

301

Page End

328

Print ISSN

1110-2721

Online ISSN

2735-3591

Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/article_426959.html

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http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=426959

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12

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Original Article

Type Code

1,140

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education

Publication Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Feminine Representation and Social Death in Child Marriage Humanitarian Discourse: A Gender-Based Social Actor Analysis

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Article

Created At

11 May 2025