Thursday, June 9, 2011

Child brides as young as 5 married off in secret to middle-aged men | Mail Online

Child brides as young as 5 married off in secret to middle-aged men | Mail Online: "Wide-eyed and haunted, the heartbreaking expressions on these young girls' faces hint at an innocence cruelly snatched away.

They should be playing, learning and enjoying their childhood. But instead these youngsters, some as young as five, are being married off in secret weddings. It is estimated that every year this happens to ten to 12 million girls in the developing world.

In India, the girls will typically be attached to boys four or five years older. But in Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and other countries with even higher rates of marriage at an early age, the husbands may be young men, middle-aged widowers or even abductors who rape first and claim their victims as wives afterwards.

Some of these marriages are business transactions or to resolve a family feud."


See original work for more on this and other stories.
Child brides in Hajjah

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