Ramatu

age 11, unmarried in niger

"On the way home from Koranic school I race my friends. I usually win," says a buoyant Ramatu when asked what she does for fun. Unlike her older sister Takia—married at 9, a mother at 11, now only 12—Ramatu has the time and space to engage in childhood pursuits.

Things might have been different. Ramatu's father is very poor. He believed that marriage was the only way to secure the future for his daughters. First he found a husband for Takia. Then he arranged for Ramatu to marry her mother's brother. A date was chosen for the wedding. But another uncle intervened and cancelled the ceremony. Ramatu was too young to marry, he said.

Now Ramatu goes to Koranic school, which her father pays for. She thinks about her future, though she isn't sure what it holds. "First I want to finish Koranic school, then I will see. In the meantime, I secured a birth certificate for my younger sister, Rabi, and signed her up for school."

And she's determined to make sure her older sister is not left behind. " I want to learn the Koran and how to speak French, and that way I can teach [Takia]," she says.