Feminist Theatre, Forum Drama, and Community Dialogue on Child Marriage and Girls’ Rights

African Journal of Gender and Women Studies | Vol. 11, No. 10, October 2026 | pp. 407–420

DOI: 10.46882/2026/AJGWS/001344

Article Type: Research Article

Title: Feminist Theatre, Forum Drama, and Community Dialogue on Child Marriage and Girls’ Rights

Names of Author: Efua Kyei-Baffour¹ & Hannah Whitaker²

Author's Affiliation: ¹Department of Theatre Arts, School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana; ²Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.

Abstract:
Top-down legal bans and punitive awareness campaigns against child marriage often fail to shift deeply entrenched socio-economic and cultural norms when communities perceive external interventions as culturally alien impositions. In response, feminist theatre practitioners across Africa have adopted participatory forum theatre—where community members actively intervene in dramatic performances to rehearse alternative resolutions to gender conflict—as a transformative tool for grassroots dialogue. This paper examines how community-based feminist theatre troupes engage parents, traditional elders, and adolescents in confronting child marriage and girls’ educational exclusion in northern Ghana and rural Malawi. Grounded in feminist performance theory and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, the study analyzes performance scripts, post-show audience dialogues, and follow-up interviews with 50 community participants. We argue that participatory drama fosters empathetic reflection and community-owned norm change.

Keywords: Feminist theatre, forum drama, child marriage, girls’ rights, participatory performance, cultural norms, Ghana, Malawi

Manuscript Timeline: Received: September 15, 2026; Revised: October 15, 2026; Accepted: October 19, 2026; Published: October 15, 2026.

Citation: Kyei-Baffour, E., & Whitaker, H. (2026). Feminist Theatre, Forum Drama, and Community Dialogue on Child Marriage and Girls’ Rights. African Journal of Gender and Women Studies, 11(10), 407–420. DOI: 10.46882/2026/AJGWS/001344

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