Conversations around child marriage all come down to sex: who should have it, when and with whom. Advocates are struggling to agree on all three questions.
Tag: Child Marriage
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.
How One Woman’s Story Changed the Laws on Child Marriage in Kentucky
Donna Pollard’s story is a stark reminder that society changes for the better when we listen to women.
Poverty is Fueling the High Rates of Child Marriage in Turkey
While child marriage is often framed as a traditional practice, in Turkey it is actually largely an economical one.
Girls in India Aren’t Feeling the Impacts Recent Legal Victories on the Ground
Last year, India’s highest court ruled that sex with a child was always rape, closing child marriage loopholes in their age of consent laws. Victory celebrations ensued around the world—but reports from India reveal that the ruling has been difficult to enforce at the community level.
Where Maternal Health and Child Marriage Intersect
Child marriage interrupts the futures of young girls and women around the world—and it has great ramifications on their maternal health.
The Ms. Q&A: Jaha Dukureh’s Fight to End FGM Isn’t Over Yet
Jaha Dukureh became a revolutionary when she was forced into marriage at 15—and learned that she had undergone the most severe form of female genital mutilation when she was only a week old. Ms. talked to the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize nominee about her pioneering work, her motivation and what’s next.
Girls in White Dresses
Forced child marriage isn’t just a problem abroad. Thousands of U.S. girls are married off each year—often to adult men—in places like the South Bronx and Lincoln City and the Silicon Valley. It’s time state laws protected them.
Wonder Girls: Supi is Fighting for CEDAW in Tonga
“He was enraged. He said I am a naughty, bad girl talking to him in that tone… He said, ‘Women do not matter.’
Fighting for Syrian Refugee Girls
18-year-old Muzoon Almellehan is known as the “Malala of Syria.”
Reporting on Forced Marriage—in the U.S.
It is one thing to report on girls forced into marriage against their will while reporting in South Asia. Quite another in the South Bronx. Or Northern Virginia.