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Subscribe to RSSMarried at the age of 8. That fact alone is hard to fathom. It's even more difficult to stomach when you think of the resulting forced sex, physical abuse and early pregnancies that often result. But for girls in more than 50 countries in the developing world, and for a minority in the developed world, this is their reality. The reality of child marriage.
Stephanie Sinclair / VIl
Faiz, 40, and Ghulam, 11, sit in her home prior to their wedding in the rural Damarda Village, Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2005. Ghulam said she is sad to be getting engaged as she wanted to be a teacher.
Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has been documenting this issue around the world since 2003. A large body of her work was published last year in National Geographic.
We asked Sinclair to tell us more about her reporting:
How did you come up with this story idea and how long have you been reporting it?
This project began in 2003, after I met several girls in Herat, Afghanistan who had attempted suicide by self-immolation. I noticed that many of the girls who had set themselves on fire had been married at very young ages, in many cases prepubescent. It was the first time I’d ever encountered anyone who had been married so young. This phenomenon seemed to link many of these girls and this intense act of desperation. I couldn’t help but feel a responsibility to research and document whatever it was that would make these girls take such drastic measures. The resulting project has taken almost a decade to date, and I am still working on the issue. What makes it so complicated is its prevalence in more than 50 countries worldwide. To document it properly, one needs to address the many cultural reasons behind the issue as well as the differing impacts on the varying societies.
How many different countries did you travel to for this story, and how did you gain access to these sensitive stories and events?
I have documented this issue in Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Ethiopia and Yemen. Access has always been incredibly difficult for several reasons. The most obvious obstacle is that parents and families innately know that what they are doing can harm their children. But they continue this harmful traditional practice because they may feel societal pressures, have concerns for their safety and well being should they remain unmarried, or may even need to simply sell their girls in a desperate move to feed their other children. Fortunately, almost every image in this project was done with the help of the locals living within these societies. They wanted this issue to get support so they could be further empowered to combat child marriage. Those people were key in helping me gain access, and telling these stories would have been impossible without them.
Stephanie Sinclair / VII
Nujood Ali was ten when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen. The girl's courageous act and the landmark legal battle that ensued turned her into an international heroine for women's rights. Now divorced, she is back home with her family and attending school again.
What is most disturbing to you about child marriage and what would you most like people to know about it?
There are many disturbing factors related to child marriage. But I think the thing that we must acknowledge is that in most cases these young children do not want to be married. They want normal lives — to play with their friends, be educated and have a full adolescence. These marriages rob many girls of their innocence, many times before puberty, and this is something that as a global society we cannot tolerate. The bottom line is child marriage isn't just harmful to the girls involved. It's at the root of so many other societal ills: poverty, disease, maternal mortality, infant mortality, violence against women. All of those are symptoms connected to the same problem: child marriage. If you solve the child marriage problem, these other issues benefit as well.
Is there a solution?
A multifaceted approach is needed to address the issue of child marriage. In fact, yesterday Sec. Hillary Clinton announced a USAID-sponsored pilot program in Bangladesh that will work with religious leaders, media, local governments and NGOs to foster community support for an end to child marriage. However education is still the single most protective factor against this practice. This means keeping the children in school as long as possible, as well as educating the communities about its harmful impact on the health of their girls, their grandchildren, as well as their societies as a whole.
I also strongly believe there is not just a need for awareness-raising and prevention work, but we must find ways to help these girls who are already in these marriages — be it through giving financial incentives to their families to let them stay in school, or vocational training so they can have more say in their lives and households. Quality medical treatment is also needed for girls who are giving birth at these young ages. These girls need long-term solutions. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. But there seems to be a growing movement aimed at ending child marriage. In fact, at yesterday's State Department announcement, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of The Elders, announced a very ambitious goal: to end the practice by 2030. If this issue remains a global priority, I'm optimistic that we can meet that deadline.
To mark the first inaugural International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, 2012, the United Nations Population Fund will partner with VII Photo to host an exhibition at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to present the personal narrative of the girls themselves. The hope is that their stories, presented in photography and video productions by Stephanie Sinclair and Jessica Dimmock, will renew global attention toward this critical issue and accountability across the international community. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will be among many prominent figures attending the opening.
- Follow the campaign at Too Young to Wed and tooyoungtowed.wordpress.com
- See additional images from Sinclair's project and read more about child marriage at National Geographic Magazine
- View a video including interviews with some of the child brides at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
- Read 'In Niger, child marriage on rise due to hunger' in PhotoBlog
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Leave a Comment:
that first pic is so fu****g nasty. What a nasty old pedophile guy. Poor girl.
I can think of several ways to end the practice instantaneously. Kill off every one of these horrible men.
NBC is very "careful" protecting this decpicable criminal acts in islamic culture, by not mentioning the true religion of these pedophiles. Otherwise, muslims could errupt in "spontaneous" demonstration, attacking the NBC headquarters and burning NBC flags.
U.S. Serial Monogamy, bitter divorces, but this is a whole lot better than that!!!
That top picture makes me want to puke. Only a sick terrible person would do that to a child. He should be in a jail rotting!
Her parents did it to her! What do you think should happen to them?
Has anyone noticed the girl in the pic, her name is Ghulam in the caption, sitting with her 40 year old husband....that girl is white! No way is that face and hair anything but Caucasian, why is she being sold to this man? How did she get over there????
It is Afghanistan...not everyone in the Middle East has a dark complexion. Afghanistan is one of those countries whose people tend to have a much more pale skin color. You might want to do a little simple research before you suggest there have been kidnappings. It would take seconds.
Maybe something you didn't know ...or want to know...from the land where being a homosexual is a death sentence...
Afghanistan's dirty little secret
August 29, 2010
|By Joel Brinkley
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."
He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.
In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."
So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.
"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."
Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?"
....http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-29/opinion/22949948_1_karzai-family-afghan-men-president-hamid-karzai
"bacha bazi"
The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan,
Apr 20, 2010 .
As the United States deepens its commitment to Afghanistan, FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the war-torn nation to reveal a disturbing practice that is once again flourishing in the country: the organized sexual abuse of adolescent boys.
In The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi (Behind Taliban Lines) returns to his native land to expose an ancient practice that has been brought back by powerful warlords, former military commanders and wealthy businessmen. Known as "bacha bazi" (literal translation: "boy play"), this illegal practice exploits street orphans and poor boys, some as young as 11, whose parents are paid to give over their sons to their new "masters." The men dress the boys in women's clothes and train them to sing and dance for the entertainment of themselves and their friends. According to experts, the dancing boys are used sexually by these powerful men.
......http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/
Oh, ew.
That guy in the picture was dirty and nasty and I feel sick just thinking about that poor little girls life. I hope she can run away. Any Mother who allows her daughter to be raped and molested via marriage is not a mother at all but a monster. As for the vile, disgusting, perverted and loathsome men forcing themselves on these children, I hope their d&cks slowly rot and fall off and a pig eats them. No, that would be too sad for the pig.
Nothing but child molesters using so called "custom" and man made religion, tailored to justify their actions!!----"disgusting!!"
Where is Hillary, the human rights organizations and the feminist movements?????
Hillary knows and doesn't give a flying f**k!
And these sickos are who we are losing American lives for?? Makes Jerry Sandusky look like a choir boy.
This is simply a way for old men to @!$%# young girls and hide behind religion while they do it. They'll throw acid at girls trying to get an education but want those same girls to stay home and play with their dicks. Harsh words, but that's how I feel.
I agree, bunch of pervs.
Well what do you know- and it's a picture of some guy wearing a turban next to an 11 yr old girl. Figures, these middle easterners make up things as they go, perverting their own religion they claim to practice to their own convenience. Then after marrying this girl if he's displeased with her he can kill her, or cut her ear off, or just beat her. He can have her stoned to death, lying about her being blasphemous or refusing him sex or whatever. They display no morals whatsoever and are instead primitive and animalistic in their ways. And we sent our troops over there to accomplish what again?
In many societies, such marriages have been the tradition for centuries and considered perfectly acceptable. Liberals reject this, yet support gay marriage, which has never been seen as anything other than an abomination until recently. Can someone explain this logic to me?
That doesn't make it right!!-----males have always dreamed up ways through their homemade religions to "rule the roost"------they have been very good at it over the centuries------ingenious "bastards!!"
Moral relativism.
I can explain this logic: There is a huge difference between two consenting adults who choose to pursue a relationship together and adults choosing to pursue a relationship with a child. Societies that follow the tradition you are referring to are wrong on a moral level, not a religious one. Liberalism isn't the issue here anyway. How do you possibly make this a political argument? Besides, liberals want change...parting ways with child molestation is just the kind of cause a liberal would fight for. If you are trying to support your conservative cause, you might want to avoid aligning yourself with child molesters.
Child "marriage" is nothing more than CHILD RAPE! This practice needs to end in every country where it is practiced. And the adults who wish to practice it need to be stopped. Dead.
Not a hell of a lot of difference than the practice that exists in our own Southern States of 14 and 15 year old girls being married to 30 and 40 year old males--------so lets clean up our own dirty little secrets as well!!-----there are a lot of really sick males out there!!
Two years ago, a 16 year old boy married a 14 year old girl. The boy was tried and sentenced, while married, for statutory rape.
Any other questions for the "southern states"?
I grew up in Mississippi, and I never saw this happen, ever. So what southern states are you talking about, exactly? There was sexual abuse, yeah-but no young teens that I ever heard of were marrying old guys. And I come from farming country. Don't you guys know what statutory rape is? As a health professional in FL, if I hear of a minor even having sex with an adult I have to report it-and the adult can go to jail. There are all sorts of obsolete laws on the books, you know.
1.6 "Phantom Beast"" - you are misinformed in general, and in specific about attitudes toward women in Israel. Orthodox Judaism holds ideas that pale in comparison to our own US right-wing religious nut jobs who ask that the female "graciously submit". It's not just what you call the "sewage" that exploit women, it is religion in general. And I would caution you to drop down out of the tree lest I or someone else start force-feeding you examples of your esteemed Protestants and Catholics who compare exactly to Muslims.
Kids should be seen and not heard and they should do whatever their elders tell them no matter where they live or no matter how different their culture is.
Kids these days are just a bunch of spoiled brats thinking they are entitled to everything for free with no hard work.
Says the conservatives.
Now, now, people.
Let's all remember 'cultural relativism'!
All cultures are equal and must be appreciated - and evaluated within their own context!
Now pardon me while I go vomit.
How silly that the obama campaign is talking about a US War on Women. THIS is the REAL WAR on WOMEN!
Islam, ain't it wonderfull, these boneheads live in the 5th century, and have no tolerance for other religions and other cultures.
There is nothing noble or good about them, they believe that anyone that is not a Muslim is to be subjugated or killed. Modern peoples need to realize that Islam is a disgusting horrible religion. Obama said there is nothing prettier than the evening call to prayer. These people that practice this are cockroaches and should be stepped on accordingly. I do not find any beauty in these Islamic practices. Look it up, a devout muslim can screw goats, children, and probably camels and still not be looked down upon by his peers. Mohammid was a disgusting pedophile, he took his wife at age 9 and these losers still worship him, and think that this is an acceptable practice. I guess holy to muzzlim means just that , lookin for hole no matter the age or species.
Your bigoted diatribe here doesn't make you sound any better. Islam is one of the three largest religions in the world; it is unfair to claim that all Muslims are the same. I live in the United States and it is very evident I am nothing like you. If you think your inflammatory statements mean anything, you're wrong. Sorry, no riots will occur in Yemen because you think Mohammad was a pedophile.
It would appear this is precisely why the Taliban want to keep girls out of school. Abuse them while they are young and uneducated, subservient and unable to improve their lot in life. An educated female is a real threat to the Taliban.
Terrible how women and children are treated in parts of the Middle East. It is a shame these places cannot break the chains of oppression. What is worse is the suggestion that we destroy these people. I wonder who is worse...
Only the men need to be destroyed since they are the problem. And then the Male children can be taught what is right and wrong. That is the only way to end this terrible culture.
All I can say to this article is
Lih Lih Lih Lih Lih Lih Lih Lih Lih... Allah Akbar!!! (shoots AK-47 into the air)
ROFL!!!!
What a shame. These countries will never be brought out of the dark Ages. That poor kid should be in school not married to this filthy old man who looks like he hasn't washed in a year or so.