More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The marriage or informal union between a child under 18 years old to an adult or another child. Child marriages affect one in five girls around the world and lead to increased risks of intimate partner violence, impoverishment, child pregnancy and insufficient education.
Five years ago, the world was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic—a crisis that transcended borders, affecting every facet of our lives. Today, while much of the world has moved on, the scars remain deeply etched in the lives of women and girls in the Global South. The crisis for us has not ended; it has merely been pushed into the shadows. As we mark World Health Day on April 7, it is imperative to confront the ongoing struggles of women and girls in the Global South and demand urgent action.
When a war forcibly displaces tens of thousands of people, UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, equips displacement camps and medical personnel with critical supplies—including condoms, oral and injectable contraceptives, contraceptives implants and intrauterine devices.
When an earthquake tumbles whole city blocks, UNFPA puts contraceptives onto emergency relief convoys, alongside kits for delivering babies and medicines to stop internal bleeding.
When a cyclone slashes through remote island communities, UNFPA sends contraceptives just as it sends sterile medical equipment.
Why? Because contraceptives are part of life-saving humanitarian care.
“Hopelessness echoes from their [Afghan women’s] voices.”
Since the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2021, Afghan women have been systematically erased from education, employment, and public life, making Afghanistan the only country where girls above sixth grade are barred from school. Once vital contributors to the nation’s progress, women are now trapped in a cycle of oppression that not only devastates their futures but also weakens Afghanistan’s economy and global standing. The world must take urgent action to combat this gender apartheid and support Afghan women in their fight for basic human rights.
Throughout his life, President Jimmy Carter truly cared about the challenges women face and how people can implement programs to help end discrimination.
May all of us continue to carry his inspiration and commitment in our hearts and actions.
Brides shouldn’t be thinking about homework just before their wedding day. But when I entered into an arranged marriage with a 28-year-old stranger, I was still just a 17-year-old girl who loved her private British school and her books and cricket—and so I found myself thinking about a creative-writing assignment I had recently finished. I’d written a story about a young woman who wore jewelry in the shapes of snakes. I wrote that they suddenly came to life and they slithered up to her throat, strangling her.
As someone who was forced into a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are effectively choosing a life without choice—putting themselves in a prison of their own making.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week: The Supreme Court considers a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans teens; data shows crimes in public restrooms and changing rooms are extremely rare, and are not decreased by laws preventing trans people from using public bathrooms; analyzing Trump’s cabinet nominees; midwives say climate change is harming their communities; Nevada maintains a majority woman legislature; criminal justice reform for probation, parole and bail is critical; Arizona moves to end 15-week abortion ban; Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have asked the Biden administration to limit the federal government from deploying troops domestically; and more.
Iraqi lawmakers’ proposal to amend the country’s family law and grant religious courts the authority to legalize marriages for underage girls is being pushed by the country’s Shiite parliamentary factions, as part of their appeal to conservative voters ahead of the country’s October 2025 elections, if not sooner.
The proposal has sparked a firestorm, particularly after initial reports suggested it could allow marriages for girls as young as 9 years old. Some experts contend the bill could also further fracture Iraq’s stability.
I was a refugee during the Cold War, displaced by the geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and the USSR. Like millions of other children from that time, I carried the heavy weight of that war. My family fled Afghanistan, and in the process, I lost years of regular schooling—years that were supposed to form the foundation of my childhood.
The weight of this suffering has always fallen on children. And just as the world once turned away from the children of Auschwitz, Nagasaki and Trảng Bàng, it turns away from children in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan and many other places today. We revisit those historical images as if they were warnings, as if by remembering them we could prevent history from repeating itself. But we haven’t learned. The children of today are still carrying the same burdens—only the names and places have changed.
Tony Hinchcliffe’s categorically unfunny appearance at Donald Trump’s recent rally in Madison Square Garden leaves me wishing that whoever discovered him left him sleeping in his car behind The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. (It’s how he opens the 12-minute set.)
Most of the ensuing backlash targeted Hinchcliffe’s puerile reliance on racism as humor. But another underreported moment that caught my attention was Hinchcliffe’s “joke” about Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce becoming “the next O.J. Simpson,” referencing Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder, widely believed to be the responsibility of her known abuser.
The joke hinges on the idea that Kelce might murder his girlfriend, Taylor Swift. Hinchcliffe referenced Swift’s political endorsement of Kamala Harris immediately after this joke. His punchline: If a woman voices her opinion, intimate partner violence is a hilarious solution. It’s an interesting stance for the so-called pro-life party to broadcast publicly.
Oct. 11 is International Day of the Girl, an annual celebration that promotes advocacy for the rights, education and empowerment of girls across the globe. This year’s theme is “Girls’ Vision for the Future.” Child marriage, a practice that robs millions of girls of their childhoods, opportunities and dreams, prevents girls from realizing their own vision for the future. Each year, an estimated 12 million girls are married before the age of 18, perpetuating cycles of poverty and inequality.
We got the chance to speak with Clay Dunn, CEO of VOW for Girls, an organization that partners with brands, individuals, and the wedding industry to raise money for local partners working to end child marriage in their community.