Why Is It So Hard to Combat Child Marriage?

Thu, 06/28/2012
TIME

TIME contributor, Amy Friedman, discusses the various hurdles organizations must overcome to eradicate child marriage.

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Enana recalls her parents bathing her many years ago to get ready for, they told her, a holiday celebration. She doesn't remember how old she was.

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The lives of many adolescent girls living in Upper Egypt resemble those of young children in perpetuity, blindly obeying their parents– and then their husbands – with no control over their own destiny. Child marriage and a lack of education inevitably shape these girls’ futures, carving the direction their life paths will take. Nearly a quarter of girls aged 20-24 in this agricultural region have reported marrying before they turned 18. Most, if not all, first dropped out of school.

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