Isolated agrarian communities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu were hard hit by the pandemic, experiencing increased poverty, the diversion of savings toward healthcare, and prolonged illness, forcing families to pull their daughters out of school and marry them off. Years later, attendance rates haven't recovered, and child marriages haven't subsided.
Globally, there are 640 million women who were married as children. The new report, commissioned by Sheryl Sandberg with support from Hillary Rodham Clinton, identifies steps that governments and communities can take to end the practice of child marriage.
While the United States has pledged to eliminate forced and child marriage by the year 2030, there are still 34 states where child marriage is still permitted.
When incomes decline, families become desperate. Marrying off their girls can be a step toward easing this despondency.
Caught in the throes of overlapping social and economic crises, women in Venezuela there have almost no resources to protect themselves or their children from harm. Violence against women and girls — including incest — remains prevalent, and invisible, throughout the country.
North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper signed Senate Bill 35, which increases the minimum age for marriage from 14 to 16 years old (under certain circumstances), into law on August 26.
When Cyclone Winston ravaged the island nation of Fiji in 2016, it came with 185-mile-per-hour winds and a massive storm surge that displaced thousands, and took away the livelihoods of thousands more. Amid the downed palm trees and debris, people became hungry and desperate.
As climate change and the pandemic inflate food sales, families in Kenya's slums, already sunken into poverty, are resorting to marrying off their young daughters.