The story of an 11-year-old Yemeni girl named Nada al-Ahdal, who recorded a brief video explaining why she’d fled her parents to avoid the marriage they’d arranged for her, has finally attracted much of the world’s attention to the plight of child brides. Married off by their parents before they turn 18 or often before they’ve even hit puberty, the girls stand to lose much more than just the right to choose their own spouse. “The problem with underage marriage is that it poses great risks to the girls involved,” Lauren Wolfe, who directs the Women Under Siege project at the Women’s Media Center, explained to my colleague Caitlin Dewey. Those risks are often substantial and the problem goes much deeper than you might think. Here, then, are several facts about child brides and what they face, compiled from a Human Rights Watch brief and other sources. 1. Child brides often die from pregnancy or childbirth Child brides often become child mothers, frequently before their bodies are completely ready. In developing countries, where almost all child marriages take place, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the No. 1 cause of death for girls age 15 to 19. That means that pregnancy and childbirth kill more girls in the developing world than war, AIDS, tuberculosis or any other cause. The reason that pregnancy and childbirth kill so many girls is that their bodies are not ready. In developing countries, a girl or woman is twice as likely to die in childbirth if she’s age 15 to 19 than she is if she’s in her 20s. Girls under the age of 15 are five times as likely to die. Statistically, Nada al-Ahdal had real reason to fear that her marriage could kill her.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 09:41:39 +0000
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