- 1. Tehani, 8, Yemen. Whenever I saw him, I hid. I hated to see
him, Tehani (in pink) recalls of the early days of her marriage to
Majed, when she was 6 and he was 25. The young wifeposed for a
portrait with former classmate Ghada, also a child bride, outside
their home in Hajjah.
2. Ghulam, 11, Afghanistan. Ghulam plays in the village on the
day of her engagement. Removed from school just months earlier, she
said she is sad to be getting engaged, as she wanted tobe a
teacher. Parents sometimes remove their daughters from school to
protect them from the possibility of sexual activity outside of
wedlock. 3. Faiz, 40, and Ghulam, 11, Afghanistan. Ghulam and Faiz
sit for a portrait in her home before their wedding in Afghanistan.
According to the U.S. Department of State report Human
RightsPractices for 2011, approximately 60 percent of girls were
married younger than the legal age of 16. Once the girl's father
has agreed to the engagement, she is pulled out of
schoolimmediately. 4. Destaye, 11, and Addisu, 23, Ethiopia. Addisu
and his new bride Destaye are married in a traditional Ethiopian
Orthodox wedding in the rural areas outside the city of Gondar,
Ethiopia.Community members said that because of his standing as a
priest, Addisus bride had to be a virgin. This was the reason
Destaye was given to him at such a young age. 5. Destaye, now 15,
intended to continue her schooling, in spite of the teasing she
endured from her community. They used to laugh at me for going to
school after marriage, she said. ButI know the use of school so I
dont care...But people laughing at you makes it more difficult.
After the birth of her son six months ago, however, Destaye no
longer had time for classes. Ifeel sad because I quit learning, she
said. 6. Sumeena, 15, Nepal. Sumeena leaves her home to meet her
groom, Prakash, 16. The harmful practice of child marriage is
common in Nepal. Many Hindu families believe blessings will
comeupon them if they marry off their girls before their first
menstruation. 7. Bishal, 15, and Surita, 16, Nepal. Bishal accepts
gifts from visitors as his new bride, Surita, sits bored at her new
home. Here in Nepal, as in many countries, not only girls, but boys
too aremarried young. 8. Rajani, 5, India. Long after midnight,
Rajani is roused from sleep and carried by her uncle to her
wedding. Child marriage is illegal in India, so ceremonies are
often held in the wee hours of themorning. It becomes a secret the
whole village keeps, explained one farmer. 9. Rajani, 5, and her
boy groom barely look at each other as they are married in front of
the sacred fire. By tradition, the young bride is expected to live
at home until puberty, when a secondceremony transfers her to her
husband. 10. A young woman walks through the fog in the early
morning near the city of Kapilvastu, Nepal. 11. Roshan, 8,
Afghanistan. Female relatives of the bride-to-be, Roshan, prepare
food and tea for guests on the day of her engagement to Said, 55,
at her home in rural Afghanistan. Upsetabout the engagement of her
daughter, her mother exclaimed, We are selling our daughters
because we dont have enough food to feed the rest of our children!
12. Surita, 16, Nepal. Village leader Pudke Shreshta Balami blesses
the home of Surita directly following the wedding ceremony in
Nepal. 13. Tehani, 8, Yemen. Tehani works in the fields just
outside her village in the rural areas of Hajjah, Yemen. 14. Young
girls sit inside a home outside of Al Hudaydah, Yemen. Yemeni
women's rights groups agree that child marriage is rampant in every
part of Yemeni society. 15. Leyualem, 14, Ethiopia. Family members
place a white cloth over the head of Leyualem as they prepare to
take her to her new grooms home in Ethiopia. 16. Leyualem is
transported by mule to her new home on her wedding day. The men
later said the cloth was placed over her head so she would not be
able to find her way back home, shouldshe want to escape the
marriage. 17. Sarita, 15, India. Sarita is seen in tears before she
is sent to her new home with her new groom. The previous day, she
and her 8-year-old sister Maya were married to sibling brothers.
18. Sidaba, 11, and Galiyaah, 13, Yemen. After celebrating with
female relatives at a wedding party, Yemeni brides Sidaba and
Galiyaah are veiled and escorted to a new life with theirhusbands.
19. Debitu, 14, Ethiopia. Debitu escaped from her husband after
months of abuse. Seven months pregnant, she is now homeless and
uncertain of her future. I didnt want to get pregnant because I was
very small. I wantedto wait until I am old enoughSometimes I think
I will die during child birth 20. Agere, 32, Ethiopia. Agere
breastfeeds her twin newborns. Agere was married at age 12 to her
husband who later gave her AIDS. The twins have tested HIV
positive. Now abandoned, shedoes not have enough money to buy them
uninfected milk. 21. Niruta, 14, Nepal. A nine-months pregnant
Niruta carries grass for her familys farm animals in Kagati
Village, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Niruta moved in with the family
of Durga, 17, andbecame pregnant when they were only engaged. In
some circles of the more socially open Newar people, this is
permissible. 22. Asia, 14, Yemen. Asia washes her newborn at home
in Hajjah while her 2-year-old daughter plays. Asia is still
bleeding and ill from childbirth, yet has no knowledge of how to
care forherself or access to maternal health care. 23. Mejgon, 16,
Afghanistan. Mejgon weeps in the arms of her case worker near
fellow residents at an NGO shelter run by Afghan women in Herat,
Afghanistan. Mejgons father sold her atthe age of 11 to a
60-year-old man for two boxes of heroin. 24. Bibi Aisha, 19,
Afghanistan. In a practice known as baad, Bibi Aisha's father
promised her to a Taliban fighter when she was 6 years old as
compensation for a killing that a member of herfamily had
committed. She was married at 16 and subjected to constant abuse.
At 18, she fled the abuse but was caught by police, jailed and then
returned to her family. Her father-in-law,husband and three other
family members took her into the mountains, cut off her nose and
her ears, and left her to die. I was a woman exchanged for someone
elses wrongdoing. (Mynew husband) was looking for an excuse to beat
me. 25. Jamila, 15, Afghanistan. Kandahar policewoman Malalai Kakar
arrests a man who repeatedly stabbed his wife, 15 and mother of two
children, for disobeying him. When asked whatwould happen to the
husband for this crime, Nothing, Kakar said. Men are kings here.
Kakar was later killed by the Taliban. 26. China, 18, Ethiopia. A
young sex worker named China sits stunned after being beat up by a
client. Many of the girls who run away from child marriages end up
trafficked tobrothels where they often face intense violence. 27.
Members of the Fistula Girls Club and the Community-based
Reproductive Association, get ready to perform a traditional dance
during a performance against child marriage in theShende village in
Ethiopia. This is one of many events hosted by the groups to
discourage early marriage and other harmful practices in the Bure
district. 28. Street girls attend classes at Godanaw Rehabilitation
Integrated Project, GRIP, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This Ethiopian
humanitarian shelter provides skills training and health care
tothousands of street girlsthree-quarters of them escapees from
early marriages in the countryside. 29. Nujood, 12, Yemen. Nujood
Ali, two years after her divorce from her husband, who was more
than 20 years her senior. Nujood's story sent shock waves around
the country and causedparliament to consider a bill writing a
minimum marriage age into law. The bill is still pending. Don't let
your children get married. You'll spoil their educations, and
you'll spoil theirchildhoods if you let them get married so young.
30. Maya, 8, and Kishore, 13, India. Family members escort the
newly married Maya and Kishore to his familys home. They were
married on the Hindu holy day of Akshaya Tritiya, which issaid to
bring good luck and is widely known in Rajasthan as the day for
child marriages. 31. Maya and Kishore pose for a wedding photo in
their new home. 32. Sumeena, 15, and Kanchi, 17, Nepal. Kanchi
kisses her younger cousin Sumeena goodbye as she leaves home on her
wedding day. 33. Leyualem, 14, Ethiopia. Leyualem has a moment
alone before being whisked away on a mule by her new husband and
groomsmen in Ethiopia. Leyualem had never mether husband before her
wedding day, yet submitted as they bound her in the white wedding
cloth. 34. Photos: Stephanie Sinclairfrom
