Prevalence of Child Marriages Worldwide – as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
Child marriage, although illegal in most locations throughout the world, is still prevalent in many cultures. An astounding 100 million girls under the age of 18 will be married off during the next ten years.
Considered a human rights violation, the effects on these young girls include poverty, premature pregnancies and births, early mortality rates, illiteracy and physical abuse and violence.
Take the case of a little girl in Afghanistan forced to marry a 40 year old man when she was just 11 years old. Most of these marriages take place in the middle of the night under secretive conditions and the girls are not even aware of what is happening.
In 2008, a 10 year old girl from Yemen fought for her liberation from a husband three times her age. In a rare and brave case, the child bride found her way to a courthouse and was able to convince a judge to grant her a divorce from the man who physically and sexually abused her for months.
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