Cynthia Gorney reports on a disturbing reality:
[I]n communities of pressing poverty, where nonvirgins are considered ruined for marriage and generations of ancestors have proceeded in exactly this fashion—where grandmothers and great-aunts are urging the marriages forward, in fact, insisting, I did it this way and so shall she—it's possible to see how the most dedicated anti-child-marriage campaigner might hesitate, trying to fathom where to begin. "One of our workers had a father turn to him, in frustration," says Sreela Das Gupta, a New Delhi health specialist who previously worked for the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), one of several global nonprofits working actively against early marriage. "This father said, 'If I am willing to get my daughter married late, will you take responsibility for her protection?' The worker came back to us and said, 'What am I supposed to tell him if she gets raped at 14?' These are questions we don't have answers to."
(Photo: Bas Gul, 17, resides at a women's shelter and safe house October 7, 2010 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She was a child bride, forced to marry at age 11, and ran away after five years of marriage. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
The Dish 