Thrown in to Hell

Remember your school days, the good old days when you had absolutely no worries and were free like free can be?
What would have been your fate if you had to sacrifice that life to enter a marriage at that tender age? 
Where would you be now if you were burdened with responsibilities of an adult married life when you were only a kid?





                           That is what happened to Nujood Ali,a simple child from Yemen. She was only nine years old when she was married to Faez Ali Thameer who was in his thirties. She only managed to escape the brutal fate of being raped by her husband and physically abused by the family members after two months. But not every child is that lucky.

Child marriage is a formal marriage or informal union entered into by an individual before reaching the age of 18. 

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) a person should be able to give"free and full” consent before getting married and he or she must be mature enough to make an informed decision. 

How can a small child make such a decision?

• According to UNICEF every year an estimated 14 million girls worldwide get married before the age of 18 years.
• Furthermore in the developing world one in every seven girls get married before their 15th birth day.
• In fact it is said that every three seconds a girl is getting married before her eighteenth birthday,that is 25000 girls per day.
• Child marriage is most common in South Asia,Latin America,Caribbeans, Middle east and Africa.
• Nearly half of all Indian girls become child brides.
• In Sri Lanka the percentage of girls getting married before 18 years is estimated to be 12%.

Trapped in a marriage for which no on asked what their choice was, the child brides face a lot of unwanted consequences.
They become pregnant at their teen age, not at all prepared either physically or mentally to go though a pregnancy.

Teen pregnancy is in fact the main cause of death in below nineteen years in the developing world.

As their body is not developed enough they are more to complications at birth.Even the children born as a result of a teen pregnancy are more prone to early death and various health problems.

Forced in to a marriage usually to a man , much older than her, the  child bride does not get a chance to continue her education and often becomes socially isolated and economically dependant on the husband and the family.Not only she gets sexually abused by the husband, she is also more prone to become a victim of domestic violence.


Although many communities are starting to moving away from the concept of child marriage, it is still prevalent in developing countries due to reasons like poverty, religious and social pressure.

But none of these reasons ever justifies snatching the soul of a playful innocent little child and pushing her straight in to hell.

" Child marriage is a practice that robs millions of girls of their childhood, their rights and their dignity"
   -Archbishop Desmond Tutu

http://www.unicef.org/policyanalysis/files/Note_on_Child_Marriage.pdf
http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures
http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/about-child-marriage/