Girls should spend their days playing carefree and learning between school desks, but in Africa they live in the anguish of being kidnapped at any moment and forced to marry older men.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousBeing kidnapped while playing or walking to school. It happens every day to thousands of girls who live in different African countries, such as Niger, Chad and Ghana. Many of them don't even turn 15 and find themselves forced to marry much older men. They should still play happy and carefree with dolls, but it is they who become dolls, fed to orcs who often treat them as objects.
That of early marriages it is a widespread phenomenon on the African continent, but their cry still remains unheard. In most of the Sub-Saharan African states, one in five girls is already married, while the others live in fear of ending up in the same way (without anyone intervening to save them).
“My name is Porshia, I am 10 years old and I live in Ghana. When I grow up I would like to be a nurse, but every day when I go to school I am so afraid of being kidnapped and forced to marry ”tells a Ghanaian girl to the volunteers of the international organization Actionaid, committed to the fight against poverty and the protection of human rights.
@Actionaid
The phenomenon of child brides is unfortunately still very widespread in Ghana, a very poor country, where a large part of the population does not have the means of subsistence and suffers from hunger. - explains Actionaid - In this context of poverty, unfortunately, there are frequent kidnappings of girls, which are used as a means to make a profit: sold as brides to the best buyer or returned to their family in exchange for a lavish ransom. In some cases, they are forced to marry the kidnappers themselves and are often victims of violence of all kinds.
Read also: The drama of Mexican child brides, sold to the highest bidder at the age of 9
The terrifying fate of child brides
According to a recent United Nations report, over the next decade the number of child brides in the world it will grow by 13 million. Getting married at an early age often has irreversible consequences on a psychological and often physical level, given that girls are forced to face pregnancies with a high risk of mortality, are exposed to diseases such as HIV and in many cases also suffer physical violence from their partners. . Every year around the world over 22.000 girls and boys die in pregnancy or childbirth, according to the most recent estimates by Save the Children, the international organization that has been fighting for about a century to protect the future of minors.
The highest rate of early marriages is recorded in Central and West Africa: around 25 girls who are forced to marry die here every day. One of the main causes of this terrible practice is the poverty faced by families. Often girls are offered or sold so as not to force them to beg or prostitute themselves. But deeply rooted religious beliefs and traditions also come into play. In the Masai tribes of Africa, for example, the belief is still very strong that girls automatically become ready for marriage immediately after the first menstrual cycle arrives.
Various associations are fighting against this brutal practice, including Actionaid, Unicef and Save the Children, but unfortunately it is very difficult to eradicate it, given that it is very much alive and in areas of the world where societies are strongly patriarchal. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has given the final blow, exacerbating gender inequalities and pushing more families into extreme poverty. And for the girls of Chad, Ghana and many other countries around the world, the future is increasingly bleak.
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Fonti: Actionaid/Save the Children/Alice for Children
Read also:
- The Pakistani child bride who helped make child marriage illegal in New York State
- The drama of Mexican child brides, sold to the highest bidder at the age of 9
- The drama unveiled of 629 Pakistani child brides abused, threatened and sold in China
- Theresa Kachindamot, the woman who freed over 800 child brides in Africa
