Child Brides - How We Can End Child Marriage

It Only Takes a Girl - How Education Can Change Everything

I recently was exploring the profiles of my friends on Facebook and found this:

It Only Takes A Girl

This reminded me of an article I read, while waiting for my daughter at the dentist, about a young girl Nujood Ali who was a child bride forced by her parents to marry a much older man who raped and beat her. She fled and petitioned the courts for a divorce. The divorce was granted and the child bride was able to return to her family home and go back to school. A short interview with Nujood Ali is in the CNN report below.

Watch this . . .

Child Brides

Click here to read the article on Nujood Ali, a child bride, in Glamour magazine.

The stats on child brides are astonishing, as you saw in the YouTube video - one is seven girls is married by the age 15 in the developing world. There are cultural, political and economic reasons for families marrying their children off at such young ages. Without an education these girls grow up and raise their girls who will in turn be child brides and the cycle will continue.

The only way this can stop is if education is given and girls and their families are shown another way. Most child brides won't have a family member who will support their decision to leave their husbands and stand before a court to gain permission to divorce. Most will be forced back to their husbands who will often punish them severely.



There are organizations dedicated to eradicating this:

International Planned Parenthood Foundation

We Day - Global Voices: The Right To Childhood

International Center for Research on Women



Are just a few that you can read about and get involved in.

I learn about these archaic traditions and how horrible most girls in the world have it and I am ever thankful that I was born and raised in a culture that allows women to follow their ambitions and make choices for themselves. I may not have a nice home with a comfortable existence but I have an education, the freedom to use my mind and follow my passions. For that I am eternally grateful.

I hope by sharing this with you, I am making a change in my own way by giving a voice to so many who are without.

Thank you for reading.

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