The United Nations Population Fund released a report to coincide with the inaugural Day of the Girl Child, detailing how millions of girls each year are still being pushed to wed much-older men.
An innocent, 8-year-old girl, Roshan, smiles on her engagment day with Said, 55, in Afghanistan on Sept. 10, 2005. Roshan's father said he's sad to give his daughter away, but has no choice due to severe poverty.
Stephanie Sinclair/ VII / tooyoungtowed.org An innocent, 8-year-old girl, Roshan, smiles on her engagment day with Said, 55, in Afghanistan on Sept. 10, 2005. Roshan's father said he's sad to give his daughter away, but has no choice due to severe poverty.
Child marriage continues to plague developing countries across the world, where girls as young as six are wed to men sometimes four, five, six or seven times their age.
Many will become pregnant and die while giving birth — the leading cause of death among 15-to-19-year-old girls in these countries, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Stephanie Sinclair/ VII / tooyoungtowed.org Young girls sit inside a home outside of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, in February 2010.
One in three girls in the developing world will marry before they turn 18. Those with no education are most likely to be married. It’s a trend that propagates poverty, STDs and economic dependency.
Photographer Stephanie Sinclair partnered with UNFPA for “Too Young to Wed,” a series of stark photos highlighting the lives of child brides.
“I was given to my husband when I was little and I don’t even remember when I was given because I was so little,” said one girl named Kansas, 18. “It’s my husband who brought me up.”
Another girl, who married at age 6, admitted she had no idea how babies are made, despite being a mother herself.
“I don’t know how children are made,” Tehani, of Yemen, said. “But they get pregnant ... They carry it inside their stomach. Then they deliver it and it comes out a baby.”
UNFPA urges governments to end child marriage by enforcing laws, identifying the areas where girls are most at risk of becoming a child bride, and expanding prevention programs.
