Child Brides: The Health and Human Consequences of Marrying Too Young
Master class at the Boston University School of Public Health focusing on the global phenomenon of forced child marriage
- Nov 4, 2011 -- In many countries around the world, girls as young as 5 are forced into arranged marriages with much older men in a complex cultural practice often cloaked in secrecy. A presentation at Boston University School of Public Health, and a similar forum at the Boston Public Library Central Branch, discussed some of the origins of this custom. Both events were co-sponsored by BUSPH, the BU Center for Global Health & Development, the BU College of Communication, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
#Childbrides: Women and children are at the nexus of public health and this topic touches on both of those areas: @BUSPH Dean Bob Meenan- After an introduction by BUSPH Dean Bob Meenan and Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer, photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair showed a chilling video of child brides in Yemen, India, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.
- #childbrides video: A 17-year-old Afghan teen recounts how her father-in-law cut off her nose and ears as payment for a family squabble
- #childbrides video: Marriage rates are declining, still 100 million girls will get married over the next decade
- SInclair added comments after the video, explaining that:
- Sinclair: #childbrides project started in 2003 as an investigation into the why Afghan women were setting themselves on fire
- #childbrides: Stephanie Sinclair: Stories from the girls themselves, not from NGOs, were the main reason that she continued with project
- Religion, while a factor, isn't the only determinant of child marriage, nor is the custom specific to any one religion or one region, Sinclair said:
- #childbrides: Child marriage isn't limited to Islamic countries. Sinclair documented the practice in Hindu communities in Nepal and India
- Sinclair and writer Cynthia Gorney -- whose collaboration was featured in the June 2011 edition of National Geographic -- said education was far more of a key than religion:
- #childbrides: Education is a key factor that can reduce the number of child brides, but culture is deeply entrenched, difficult to change
- S. Sinclair: Education brings power and knowledge to girls, but education usually stops once girls are engaged and become #childbrides
- Lack of female teachers means girls can't go to school past a certain age, leading parents to marry them off to protect them: #childbrides
- Another interesting, unexpected discovery was the level of support from some men within the communities that Sinclair and Gorney visited:
- There are people within the countries who disagree with child marriage, and encouraged Sinclair to present her findings #childbrides
- Some men within communities were the most supportive of exposing #childbrides because they wanted the entir… (cont) deck.ly/~G74vW
- As Gorney added later:
- Gorney: It's crucial to understand how these actions can reflect women's power and not just their lack of power #childbrides
- Gorney: Some of the fiercest advocates for continuing #childbrides were the mothers and grandmothers of the girls
- Gorney, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley, revealed that she entered the project with a firmly held position, but found that the subject of child marriage was far more complex and nuanced the more she reported on it.
- #childbrides: writer Cynthia Gorney: initially thought child marriage was barbaric, slowly understood it was far more complex than that
- Gorney: #childbrides practice spans to age 18, and many of the emotional, psychic and long-term harms are similar throughout the age range
