This is a sad, stunning image, of a young fourteen year-old mother washing her newborn. This is a part of an article written at the National Geographic
about child brides, and there is a photo series that show the miserable lives of these young little girls whose childhoods are stolen from them.
It was hard reading that essay in the National Geographic, and some of the quotes by the husbands of these child brides made me angry, like the ones below:
Her name was Suad. The sheikh was her father. She had been married at 14 to a cousin he selected. "I liked him," Suad said, her voice low, as the sheikh kept his eyes upon her. "I was happy."
The sheikh made various pronouncements concerning marriage. He said no father ever forces his daughter to marry against her will. He said the medical dangers of early childbirth were greatly exaggerated. He said initiation to marriage was not necessarily easy, from the bride's point of view, but that it was pointless to become agitated about this. "Of course every girl gets scared the first night," the sheikh said. "She gets used to it. Life goes on."
So little girls get used to being raped after being introduced to rape by their husbands on their wedding nights. Some of the women interviewed in the article said that the little girls know nothing about sex, and sex education in Yemen, Afghanistan, and other countries are such that many of these girls don't even know they're having babies when they give birth.
Many of these men scoff at the notion that giving birth so early can be dangerous for child brides. You see that fourteen year old mother in the picture above tending to her newborn daughter? She's still bleeding from her childbirth with no medical attention. Here's a report from the International Women's Health Coalition about the high risk that child pregnancies carry with them:
EARLY MARRIAGE JEOPARDIZES GIRLS' HEALTH
Child marriage is the major cause worldwide of pregnancies before age 15. In most of the developing world, 90 percent of girls who give birth before age 18 are married. Young brides typically become sexually active as soon as they are married, sometimes before their first menstruation. Often living in their husband's household and community, they face intense pressures to bear children as soon as possible, with potentially disastrous results.
- Because their bodies (bone structure, pelvis, reproductive organs) are not yet fully developed, girls ages 14 and younger run a very high risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth compared with older adolescents.
- Prolonged and obstructed labor, which is common among pregnant young adolescents, can lead to hemorrhage, severe infection, and maternal death. This is especially true for girls who experience additional pregnancy-related complications such as eclampsia. Those who survive may suffer from obstetric fistula,a debilitating condition that causes chronic incontinence and results in shame and social isolation.
- Girls who are married young are also more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. For example, in Kisumu, Kenya, HIV infection rates are nearly 33 percent among married girls
ages 15 - 19, compared with 22 percent among unmarried, sexually-active girls of the same age.
- Girls' physiological vulnerability due to the small size, inelasticity, and lack of lubrication of the vagina and cervix is compounded by their exposure to frequent, unprotected, and sometimes forced sexual intercourse within marriage; lack of information about STIs, including HIV; and inability to negotiate their own protection.
- Throughout countries of Africa and Latin America, more than 80 percent of adolescent girls ages 15 - 19 who report having unprotected sex in the previous week are married.
- The average age gap between young brides and the men they marry reaches eight to ten years or more in some countries. The older the husband, the more likely it is that he has had multiple sexual partners and may be HIV-positive.
So much for the notion that child pregnancies aren't dangerous. They are, and sexual intercourse can be life-threatening in many cases:
Two days after I received the video, a dispatch arrived from Yemen. Newspapers were reporting that a bride from a village had been dropped off at a Sanaa hospital four days after her wedding. Sexual intercourse appeared to have ruptured the girl's internal organs, hospital officials said. She had bled to death. She was 13 years old.
The practice of child marriage is nothing more than sanctioned rape of girls and forced births that put their health at great risk. When a man gets a child bride, what he's not getting is not a wife, but a sex slave. That's the reality of it. And it still goes on today in these countries.
There's a link in the National Geographic that directs you to resources where you can help get rid of this abhorrent child marriage practice. Click here to find out how you can help.