Before her wedding begins in rural Afghanistan, a 40-year-old man sits to be photographed with his 11 year old child bride. She tells the photographer that she is sad, because she hoped to become a teacher. Her favorite class is Dari, the local language, before she had to leave school to marry the 40 year old man.
She is one of the 51 million child brides worldwide today.
Although many in Afghanistan said that the men wait until puberty, women said that, indeed, men are having sex with their child brides even before puberty.
In Yemen, there is a similar picture. Tehani and Ghada (above) are sisters-in-laws photographed with their husbands, who are both members of the armed forces. Like most girls, Tehani did not even know that she was going to marry until the wedding night. She was only six years old.
Tehani describes how she entered the marriage: "They were decorating my hands, but I did not know I was going to marry.
Then my mother came and said," Come on my daughter. "They were dressing me up and I was wondering, 'where are you taking me?" Girls are not always the only ones forced to marry. A young boy got married in India and Nepal. Sometimes the boys who enter a marriage are also very young.
And often they are also victims as much as girls of this traditional practice.
