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Child marriages Each day, more than 25,000 girls younger than 18 are married across the world. Here is a look at some of them.
June 17, 2012
Balki Souley, 14, lost her baby during childbirth in a hospital in Maradi, Niger. Hospital officials said it was because of her age and the fact that she had eaten very little during her pregnancy. “When I return to my village, I will try to have another child,” said Balki, who was married at age 12.
Sudarsan Raghavan
/
The Washington Post
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June 16, 2012
Ouma Sayadou, 15, left, with her best friend in Maradi, Niger. Sayadou’s aunt rescued her from an early marriage two years ago. But her parents have been pressuring her to get married. She was set to head back to her village to be wed, although she said she wanted to remain in school.
Sudarsan Raghavan
/
The Washington Post
Sept. 20, 2011
Young Maasai girls write in a church house where they sought shelter after escaping from their villages near Narok, west of Nairobi, Kenya. There, female circumcision is still practiced despite having been outlawed. The small church house shelters about a dozen Maasai girls who have escaped circumcision and early marriage.
Tony Karumba
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AFP/Getty Images
May 16, 2010
A newly married underage couple walk together after a mass wedding at Chachoda village in Rajgarh, about 96 miles from Bhopal, India. Although underage marriage is illegal in India, ceremonies are still held, particularly in small, poverty-stricken villages.
Prakash Hatvalne
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AP
May 16, 2010
Mamta, 7, right, stands with her husband, Santosh, 11, at the mass wedding in Chachoda village. Indian law prohibits marriage for women younger than 18 and men younger than 21.
Prakash Hatvalne
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AP
May 7, 2011
Guddu Bai, 7, sits at the back of a truck as she waits for her family members after being wed at Biaora, outside Bhopal, India. Young children are married off as part of centuries-old custom in some Indian villages.
Prakash Hatvalne
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AP
May 6, 2011
Bablu, 14, wearing a garland made of Indian currency, stands with his bride, Mata Bai, 12, outside a temple after offering prayers in Rajgarh, India.
Prakash Hatvalne
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AP
May, 15, 2010
Mahesh, 14, gets ready for his marriage in a village near Kota, in the northwest of India. Children younger than the legal age to marry tie the knot during Akshaya Tritiya, which is considered one of the most auspicious days of the Hindu calendar.
Danish Siddiqui
/
Reuters
Oct. 7, 2010
Bas Gul, left, 17, lives in a women's shelter and safe house in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She was a child bride, forced to marry at 11, and ran away after five years of marriage to the boy, who was only 5 at the time of the marriage. Until women's shelters were started after 2003, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had no one to turn to for protection. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, a more concrete idea of women's rights has begun to take hold, promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women's Affairs and a small community of women's advocates.
Paula Bronstein
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Getty Images
Jan. 12, 2012
Afghan child bride Sahar Gul, 15, was treated at a Kabul hospital after being brutalized by her husband and in-laws. Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged to take action against the "cowardly" perpetrators of violence against women in the wake of the torture of Gul, who was burned and beaten and had her fingernails pulled out after she defied efforts to force her into prostitution. Gul was found last month in the basement of her husband's house in northeastern Baghlan province, where she had been locked in a toilet for six months by her husband and his parents.
Shah Marai
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AFP/Getty Images
June 16, 2012
Zahara Sani, 12, wants to wed her fiance and is upset that authorities are stopping her. Four of her girlfriends, ages 11 and 12, are married or about to get married in Niger. Her father, Sani Barmo, 81, wanted to marry off Zahara to a 20-year-old farmer in December, but a police officer learned about the plan and alerted authorities. Under law, girls younger than 15 cannot marry, but the centuries-old tradition has continued. Roughly one out of two girls marry before the age of 15, some as young as 7.
Sudarsan Raghavan
/
The Washington Post
Jan. 28, 2009
Nojoud Ali, an 11-year-old from Yemen, poses in Paris during a debate organized by a women's rights association. Ali was married to a 30-year-old and sustained months of sexual abuse. In a landmark case, she demanded and received a divorce.
Boris Horvat
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AFP/Getty Images
June 15, 2012
Zainab Oussman, 16, in Niger, was 14 when her family tried to marry her off, but she refused and stayed in school. She now stars in a video that aid workers are using to help persuade villagers to stop marrying off young girls.
Sudarsan Raghavan
/
The Washington Post
Krishna, 12, a child bride, plays on an improvised swing outside her house in a village near Baran, India. About 47 percent of women between ages 20 and 24 were married before age 18, according to the government's National Family Health Survey.
Danish Siddiqui
/
Reuters
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