A few weeks ago a man in Kenya posted a lengthy commentary in Facebook giving careful and graphic directions on how
men could make sure their "child brides" did not die as the result of intercourse.* In a world in which child marriage is
traditional, he was arguing that his advice was humane. He posted his ideas in response to a beyond disturbing
story circulating in the news about an eight-year-old Yemeni girl who died from internal wounds after a wedding night with a man five times her age. Yesterday, Yemeni officials
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Abuse Against Women (CEDAW), and the United Nation's
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), early marriage is a
violation of human rights. Early marriage has no regard for the notion of consent.
According to the
International Center for Research on Women, fully one-third of girls in the world are married before the age of 18, with little or no say in the decision leading to the marriage. That's more than 14 million every month, 39,000 a day, or one girl every two seconds. That's
six girls in the time it took me to write this sentence. One in nine is married before the age of 15. These girls, who endure years of sexual abuse and often lifetimes of anxiety, depression and trauma, are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth.
