Too Young to be a Bride

            After reading such an inspirational speech given by Malala Yousafazi to the youth of the United Nations about education, it has sparked me to write about my own ideas on the struggles of child marriages.

            What is marriage? Marriage to many may mean a million different things, but most will share the idea that  it is the union that represents the love that two legal, consenting adults share. For others around the world, marriage is the opposite of what it should be; especially for young children who are being forced in to loveless relationship. It is a business transaction, religious mean, societal norm, and/or financial profit. It is not love. In the United States, child marriage is not a common crisis we have to deal with, so we look at the idea of such a thing with shock. While we may find it to be horrifying and inhumane, others find it to be customary and expected.

                                                   Picture Source

            Girls, some as young as 5, are losing their innocence, happiness, childhood, and most of all their rights in just one ceremony. What is like to have all these things taken away from you right before your eyes as you sit there helpless? What is it like to grow up with out of these things? I couldn't even begin to imagine what it'd be like; the struggles these girls face day to day. Children having children. Children being expected to act as grown women. Children becoming objects instead of humans. Children sitting there silently under the tyranny of their husband.   

            I read stories. There are girls who grow up, only to place their daughters into the same cycle. Growing up, what surrounds you influences your beliefs and thinking. When girls are married at such a young age, they grow up around people who consider this action to be a norm. They don't really have others to tell them different. It is only common for their minds to develop the belief that is what has to happen. There's not much more than that to them. However, there are girls who are lucky enough to be able to fight these influences. They see the errors, cruelness, and shame in child marriages. Then, there are those who are even luckier to escape and speak for this issue with personal experiences. They voice their pain and fight to shed light on the reality of these nightmares.

                                  Nada-Al-Ahdal, a child who escaped marriage.

            All around the world, people have become advocators in this issue. Countries in the United Nations worked together to create Article 19, one of the thirty basic rights in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This article protects the rights that each and every human deserves to have. These laws can help protect some, but they don't have enough power to stop this matter where it stands. Like Malala said, people have to unify together and fight issues as one. We are the voices that need to speak up and educate the world about the errors of child marriages. We take a stand. We teach. We fight. No one is nothing. Big or small, we are all a voice who can fight to right that wrongs that have been made. 
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