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( intro music )
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( people chanting )
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Stephanie: Child marriage occurs
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in more than 50 developing
countries around the world.
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And almost always results
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in the girl's
removal from school.
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What families don't realize
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is that by curtailing
girl's education,
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they're only perpetuating
the cycle of poverty.
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Still, families do this
for a number of reasons.
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Perhaps they can't afford
to feed
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the rest of their children.
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It can create family alliances
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and it often settles debts.
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Early marriage often
results in abusive
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and even deadly consequences.
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( bells ringing )
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I first ran into this issue
in Afghanistan in 2003.
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I was doing a story
on the burn ward
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in Herat, Afghanistan.
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There several girls had
set themselves on fire
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and I didn't understand
why they would do that.
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As a Westerner, as someone who
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just hadn't had anything
personal in my life
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that was so bad that
I would want to do that,
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and then I met this
young girl, Marzia.
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She was 15 years
old and turned out,
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she had been married
at the age of nine.
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She had set herself on fire
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because she broke her
husband's television set
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and obviously was so
fearful of reaction
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by him or the family
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that she decided to
set herself on fire,
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and really that's
a suicide attempt.
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While I was in the burn ward,
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I met several girls who...
They all gave different reasons
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for why they would do this.
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Like someone didn't
make the tea hot enough.
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It wasn't reasons that
I could comprehend.
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The more I researched
about their lives,
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I learned that more
than half of those girls
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were married underage.
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Now, I don't believe
that's the only reason
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why those girls did that
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but at the same time,
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it was a common denominator
I couldn't deny.
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I wanted to look at the issues
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that would lead to
such a horrific act.
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I felt it was a bit
irresponsible actually
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as a photojournalist,
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the journalist part
being important,
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to just show this end result.
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I started looking at the issue
of underage marriage,
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something I had never
encountered before like this.
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I had the great fortune
to meet Malalai Kakar
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and she was a police
officer in Kandahar.
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Just a powerhouse,
really amazing woman.
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She had been working with...
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in the police department
for more than 20 years,
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even under the Taliban,
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only working on women's issues.
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I told her what I was
working on and she said,
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"Stephanie, this is impossible.
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You're never going to
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photograph a wedding
here in Afghanistan."
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She's like, "I don't even know
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if I can even get you
anything like this."
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She's like,
"It happens all the time
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but I don't know if I can get
you this," and I said "okay."
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Then I went back to the hotel
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and she called me
that afternoon.
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She's like, "Stephanie,
get over here."
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She had this young girl Jamila,
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which actually means
beautiful in Arabic,
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but this young girl Jamila,
she was 15 years old.
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She had been stabbed
by her husband.
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This is her husband there.
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She already had 2 kids
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and she had just been
trying to visit her mother
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without his permission.
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I asked Malalai,
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I said, "What's going
to happen to this man?"
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And she said, "Nothing."
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She kind of scoffed
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and then that's when she said,
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"Men are kings here."
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Unfortunately she was the one
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who was later murdered
by the Taliban.
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Having worked in the Middle
East for a long time,
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I really wanted to make
sure this wasn't something
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that was just against
one religious practice.
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It's not meant to be
against any religion,
religious practice,
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but I didn't want
to single out one,
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and so, I went looking
in different countries
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and cultures as well.
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This series of
photographs is from Nepal.
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And this is a village
called the Kagati Village
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and it's just only
30 minutes outside of Kathmandu.
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This village is known
for practicing this.
There is a day...
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It's not Akha Teej,
which they do in India,
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but it's a different
auspicious day
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where a lot of girls are
married on the same day.
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I was able to see several
of these young marriages.
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The girls are usually
married between 13 and 16.
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It was very difficult
to get access to.
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In a lot of cases I showed them
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some of the other pictures
that I had done before
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and I wanted them
to know that I wasn't ...
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You know, even though...
I mean, I was focusing,
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specifically in the beginning
of the project,
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on kind of
the harmful repercussions
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because I wanted that
message to get out,
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but at the same time
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I wanted to show
the cultures of the weddings
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and the beauty in
these cultures,
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and that was one of the reasons
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why I actually wanted to show
the weddings themselves
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because you see all
these beautiful colors.
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There are some really
beautiful traditions.
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One thing that I learned
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was that some of the people
in these weddings
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that were participating,
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were actually
against the practice
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but they were
walking a fine line
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between trying to like speak out
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but also they were
part of the culture.
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They wanted to help me out
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and help be their voice.
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I also went to Ethiopia
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where they have a strong
Christian population.
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In January there's
a lot of weddings
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up in the Amhara District,
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which is where it's most
predominant in Ethiopia.
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I went to several weddings there
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and this one was
of a young girl.
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I think she was 14, Layulim.
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Here they actually drape
the sheet over her head
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to take her to her
husband's house.
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That's when they
were taking her.
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Actually she was
one of the girls
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who didn't mind that
she was getting married.
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She thought she was
gonna have a better life.
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She wasn't against her marriage
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but they were taking
her to the house
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and I asked why is she
covered up like that?
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She said, "Well, we
just wanna make sure
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that if she escapes,
she can't find her way home,
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so she'll have to come back."
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This is the first time that
I actually was involved
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in the stopping of a wedding.
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In this situation,
the mother came over
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and she said to my translator
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that this girl was gonna
get married that week.
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She asked us if we could
stop it and I said,
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"I really don't know."
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That's not my job to do that,
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it's not my position
as a foreigner.
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Not even as a journalist
but as a foreigner
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and I said, "But, if you want
to discuss it with the sheikh...
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And we have our
government minder as well.
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"If you want to discuss it
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and tell them what you
learned, then you can."
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That's what she did.
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They made a decision.
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Even the government
minder made a decision
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to go talk to the head
of the hospital,
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not so far away,
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and they came back and they
talked to the village about
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the physical consequences
of early marriage
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and they ended up stopping
this particular wedding.
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This is a young girl
who was early 20's
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and already had
all those children.
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This is a young girl named Asia
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and she was 14 and
already had 2 children.
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She was still bleeding
from her pregnancy.
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She didn't know what was
going on with her body
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and that was one of
the scariest situations
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is them not knowing what's
going on with their bodies
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and why things are
happening to them.
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Yemen is one of the places
where it's most predominant.
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It's not as reported on
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because it's harder
to get statistics
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and whatnot from.
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But an amazing situation -
I went to one village in Hajjah
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and I said, "Can you show me
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where there are
some young girls
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who are married underage?"
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All of a sudden
all these girls come in
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and I was like, "Wow,
I was expecting like two."
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All these girls were married.
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A couple of them had children.
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Most of them were about 15, 16.
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Most of them were not in school
or had never been in school
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and I asked them
why hadn't they gone,
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and they said, "Because
there's no female teachers."
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When you have a culture
like this,
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where if you don't have girls,
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who are educated enough
to become teachers,
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then how do you
put female teachers
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in these rural areas.
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Because this isn't Sanaa.
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This isn't even Hodeidah.
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This is like
the rural village areas.
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And so, it's hard
to change a culture,
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cultural practices where...
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There's nothing for them
to do but get married
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if they're not educated
to do anything else.
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It was kind of a catch-22
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and I felt that that was
an important part of this story.
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Thank you.
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( audience clapping )
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Cynthia: I started in
India in my field work
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because it is the case of course
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that this happens
a great deal in India
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as well as other
countries, and India
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being one of the most populous
countries on the planet.
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There's a whole area
in Northern India,
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the state of Rajasthan,
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where this practice
is more widespread
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than anywhere else
concentrated in India,
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although it does take
place all over India.
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And in particular,
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there is a season in India
called Akha Teej,
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which it's not
specifically marriages
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that are regarded as auspicious,
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as we came to learn
during Akha Teej.
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All new enterprises including
business enterprises
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are thought to
have a good start,
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if they take place
during this set of
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religious and astrological
holidays in Akha Teej.
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So I first went...
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Stephanie and I didn't
connected until the 2nd trip.
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I first went and
spent a lot of time
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just in the field,
as Stephanie says,
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just talking to people
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and coming to understand
how extraordinary,
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how extraordinarily
complicated this is.
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Here's something that we all
sort of know in the abstract,
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but it takes a very
different reality
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when you're in India.
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Many, many of the
marriages in India
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are arranged marriages.
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It remains to this day
the most common way
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for marriage to occur in India,
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for young men and young women.
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So the notion that there is
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some independent right
for a woman or a girl
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to select who she's gonna marry,
is regarded
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in many of the most
enlightened families in India
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as just nonsensical
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because that's not
the way you do it.
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A marriage, Indians
would say to me
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of all educational levels,
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is a joining of two families.
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It's not two, excuse me,
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two foolish young people
in love with each other
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deciding to get married.
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There's so very
much more at stake.
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So that goes out the door
right away.
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Then you think about a village.
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A very poor village,
as this one was,
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where the only option
for a girl growing up
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is to work on a field
in tremendous heat
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or tremendous monsoon,
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and suffer possibly
the consequences
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of having some young man
or boy have sex with her
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before she's married,
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which in that
culture renders her
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basically an outcast for
the rest of her life.
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So those are two things
right there
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that are very
different from anything
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that a typical American
or Western young woman
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might have to contemplate
in her future.
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This village is the one
that we went to
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after weeks and weeks and weeks
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of hanging around
on both of our parts.
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Stephanie is the most
amazing hanger-arounder
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waiting for things to
happen I've ever encountered
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and she does it in the most
brutal circumstances
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you can imagine.
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We had been told that there
were two adolescent girls,
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sisters who were
going to be married,
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and that it was going
to take place at night,
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and that if we were
very careful,
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and did all sorts of
elegant negotiations,
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and brought some kind of
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a token of respect
to the village, we could watch.
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We came, we were
prepared for the wedding
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of a 12-year old
and a 13-year old
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or something like
that we've been told.
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This is one of the
teenage girls preparing,
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putting on her makeup.
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This is a big event
both for the girls
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and for everyone in the village.
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The entire village is consumed
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by the festivities that
are coming to pass.
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This little girl was part
of the family that we met
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and her face will haunt me
for the rest of my days.
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That is very much
what she looked like.
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We first saw her
in the afternoon
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in her little pink dress as
she was wandering around.
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We said, "Who is that?"
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They said, "Oh, she's the
cousin of the two sisters."
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People were kind of
circumspect about it.
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Then they started putting
makeup on this little girl.
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I remember this room.
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It was a tiny little
room in the village.
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It was enormously hot.
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Everybody was crammed in there.
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Of course, there were only women
as you might imagine,
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crammed into this thing,
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and Stephanie and
I just sat watching
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and we all began to realize
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and our translator who
was also a young woman,
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began to realize what we
thought was likely to happen.
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This horrible feeling
grew in all of us.
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Stephanie had been
living with this reality
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for many years
longer than any of us
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but I think, if I'm
not mistaken Stephanie,
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that this was the first time
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you had actually seen
a child this young
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being prepared for what
looked like her wedding.
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The women gathered around.
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There were many, many
prenuptial traditions.
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Some of which were
quite beautiful
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in the tremendous heat.
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I remember them walking
with crockery on their head
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across a long field.
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At one point, the cloth
that you see behind...
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They had multiple kinds
of beautiful sari cloth
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strung out all over the village
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to make canopies, to
make celebratory places
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because people were gonna
come from far and wide.
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The women are standing behind.
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There's the three girls
and they're all bathing.
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They're in the dirt
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and now they were
washing the little girl
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and now we understood for sure
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that she was gonna be
part of the wedding.
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The proceedings
went on for hours.
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That's typical for
an Indian wedding.
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It's especially
typical for weddings
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in this part of Northern India,
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where when they are
breaking the law,
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as it's important to
remember they were doing.
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This is not a legal
practice in India.
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It has not been
for over a century
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and that's the case
in most, not all,
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but most of the countries
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in which child
marriage takes place.
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If you go
to the Indian authorities
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at the state,
at the provincial...,
local level,
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the state level and
the national level,
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they will decry this
practice just as vigorously
00:14:18
as anyone here in
the United States would,
00:14:21
but they will also say
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it's very difficult to
climb into these cultures
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and find out what's going on,
00:14:26
and furthermore,
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when you do get the word
of what's going on,
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if you try to stop it...
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Which way they
will sometimes do.
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They will make a great show,
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they will throw someone in jail.
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You'll have probably
disgraced that family
00:14:40
for a generation to come.
00:14:42
You have probably
not stopped the girl
00:14:44
from getting married too early.
00:14:46
You've certainly
not given her a life
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which would be a healthy
option to being married.
00:14:52
What have you done?
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It's a huge and complex problem.
00:14:56
The night comes,
the ceremonial fire is lit
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and the expression on
the children's face
00:15:03
is one of pretty much utter
bewilderment, I would say.
00:15:08
The extent to which
this young boy,
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who is about three years
older than our five year old,
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understood what was going on,
00:15:15
it was really not
possible for us to know.
00:15:18
The older brothers
were obviously clearer
00:15:22
about what was happening.
00:15:24
These children were not
00:15:26
and it's also because it's
such a long-drawn-out ceremony,
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it has none of what we regard
00:15:31
as the sort of tidiness
of a Western ceremony.
00:15:34
"I now pronounce you husband
and wife". Boom, we're done.
00:15:36
It went on and on and on.
00:15:40
This is the picture
that haunts me still
00:15:42
and the reason I wanted
to show it you afterward
00:15:45
is that this pictures
conveys utterly
00:15:48
the confusing feeling
of that evening.
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At this moment,
she's taking a nap.
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She's been awaken from her nap
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and she's being
carried to the ceremony
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and the tenderness that
you see in this picture,
00:16:00
on behalf of the
man holding her,
00:16:02
was absolutely
what we saw there.
00:16:03
It was one of the most
complicated scenes
00:16:05
I had ever seen as a reporter.
00:16:07
Knowing that this
child is going off
00:16:09
to something that is
a horrifying notion to me
00:16:11
and at the same time,
it being very clear
00:16:14
that the people
who were doing it,
00:16:15
including this uncle
who's carrying her,
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love her deeply
00:16:18
and think they're doing
the right thing for her.
00:16:20
It is important also to remember
00:16:22
that in India, unlike some
of the other countries,
00:16:24
there is a second
ceremony that takes place.
00:16:27
The plan typically,
although not always,
00:16:29
is that this child
will live at home,
00:16:30
in this case with
her grandfather,
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and she will not go
to her husband's family
00:16:34
until she's past puberty.
00:16:36
That second ceremony
was called gauna
00:16:38
and part of what
they do in India
00:16:40
is try as hard as they
can to postpone the gauna ,
00:16:42
but it was the gentleness
00:16:44
with which this man
lifted her from sleep
00:16:46
and took her to the ceremony,
00:16:48
that really haunted me,
00:16:50
and made me realize
how far I had come
00:16:52
from my original
absolute clarity
00:16:54
about everybody involved in
this practice being simply evil.
00:16:58
Now, this child is someone
00:17:01
for whom I want you
to have some hope.
00:17:05
I talked to you originally
about some of the reasons
00:17:06
that a parent, a loving
parent would do this.
00:17:10
You're protecting your
child from possible rape
00:17:12
because you live in a society
00:17:14
in which loss of
virginity before marriage
00:17:17
renders a young woman
an outcast, number one.
00:17:20
Number two, you
know in the abstract
00:17:24
that people from the government
00:17:25
have told you
schooling is important.
00:17:27
But that's kind of irrelevant
when you live in a village
00:17:30
where the only schooling
your child can get to
00:17:32
goes up to fifth grade.
00:17:34
After fifth grade, there's a
long bus ride that's required.
00:17:37
There are predatory
men on the bus
00:17:40
which makes the bus
ride itself dangerous.
00:17:42
If you're in a
culture like this,
00:17:43
you don't send your
child to that school
00:17:45
no matter what a government
person is telling you
00:17:47
about the importance
of schooling.
00:17:49
That stops right there.
00:17:51
If you have no cultural option,
00:17:55
no effective schooling
past fifth grade,
00:17:58
no tradition of regard
00:18:00
for the importance
of individual right
00:18:03
in choosing a marriage,
00:18:05
a clear life
involving rural life,
00:18:08
agricultural work and some
kind of poverty in your future,
00:18:11
what do you do to
protect your child?
00:18:14
You make sure she's
marrying into a good family
00:18:16
and you do it very young
00:18:18
so that she won't be attacked.
00:18:20
She'll have some sort of respect
00:18:21
as a married child already,
00:18:23
and so that there's no chance
that she can go astray.
00:18:27
This child lived in a village
some distance away
00:18:33
from the one we'd
been at previously.
00:18:36
She had been in a school
00:18:38
where the government
teachers understood
00:18:39
how bad child marriage was,
00:18:41
and they had really drummed
into all of the children,
00:18:44
"Don't do this. Don't do this."
00:18:46
Her older sister
was getting married
00:18:49
in a house just
a few houses away
00:18:51
and the night of
the older sister's wedding,
00:18:53
her mother drew her aside
and said, "You too."
00:18:55
Tied a string around her wrist
00:18:57
which was part of
the ceremonial process.
00:19:00
She jumped up
00:19:02
and according to everybody
that we talked to,
00:19:03
including the mother,
00:19:05
said to her mother and father,
00:19:06
"If you do that,
I will call the police
00:19:09
and I will break your
head with a rock."
00:19:10
Those were her actual words.
00:19:12
She ran...
00:19:14
The mom finally said this
to me with some pride.
00:19:16
This was some months afterward.
00:19:18
She ran up the street
to the home of a village worker.
00:19:20
They have these India.
00:19:22
They are paid for,
very nominally, by
the local governments
00:19:25
and their job is
to monitor public health
00:19:27
in a general sort of way.
00:19:29
The village worker went over
00:19:30
with her own parents
and in-laws to the village
00:19:34
and said, "Don't ... "
00:19:35
To this house and
said, "Don't do this.
00:19:36
Let us tell you all the reasons
00:19:38
that this is a bad thing
for your daughter."
00:19:40
Astonishingly finally, there
was a huge row apparently,
00:19:43
the entire village got in on it,
00:19:45
the parents were persuaded.
00:19:47
She was not married off
00:19:49
and by the time I met
her some months later,
00:19:52
she was an avid cricket player
00:19:55
and those are
movie star pictures
00:19:58
that she has up in her room,
00:19:59
and she was preparing to go on
00:20:01
to middle school and beyond.
00:20:03
( lighthearted music )
00:20:27
( calm music )
