Blog: Sold for six thousand dollars

NAIROBI, 9 September 2008 (IRIN) – In Afghanistan, Fatima, 11, was recently engaged to a man twice her age in exchange for US$6,000. In Niger, an unnamed 13-year-old was married to a 38-year-old man in her village.

These and many more are the faces of the World Vision report released on 3 September on child brides, Before she's ready: Fifteen places girls marry by 15.

According to the report, “Child and early marriage — before the ages of 14 and 18, respectively — are expected to claim the futures of some 100 million girls in the next decade, depriving most of them of the chance to finish school and putting them at higher risk of injury or death due to early childbearing, and of contracting HIV….”

Although child marriages occur worldwide, they are most common in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Central America. The highest child marriage rates are in Bangladesh, where nearly 53 percent of girls marry before the age of 15, followed by Niger at almost 38 percent, Chad at 35 percent, and Ethiopia and India at 31 percent.