http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2016\/feb\/14\/love-conquers-all-child-brides-sweetheart-spouse-ashley-judd<\/a><\/p>\n As a girl in school, I loved Valentine\u2019s Day. I\u2019d make a card, with a boy, my best friend, my mum, or my grandparents in mind, and pop the question: \u201cWill you be my valentine?\u201d<\/p>\n As an adult, Valentine\u2019s Day is a popular and romantic moment to ask an even bigger question, one with implications and consequences meant to last a lifetime: \u201cMy valentine, will you marry me?\u201d<\/p>\n At any age, what these sweet rituals share is the freedom to think of one\u2019s beloved, and the autonomy to choose them.<\/p>\n But on 14 February, about 37,000 girls<\/a> will have their bodily integrity and sexual autonomy shattered.<\/p>\n They won\u2019t be valentines. They will be child brides.<\/p>\n They won\u2019t have sweethearts. Many will have adult rapists.<\/p>\n They won\u2019t have girlish dreams of romance; they will have perpetual hellish trauma. Their risk won\u2019t be that the one on whom they have a crush chooses another; their lives will be overshadowed by risks like obstetric fistula<\/a>, leaving them incontinent, among the other perils of teen pregnancy and sexual violence.<\/p>\n Child marriage is a mass abuse of human rights. It undercuts global development<\/a>.<\/p>\n Being a child bride dramatically increases her risk of facing death or injury<\/a>. In fact, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of death among adolescent girls aged 15 to 19<\/a>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s share our outrage. Let\u2019s make sure we see that girl, listen closely for her voiceless voice, picture her life of domestic slavery, her traumatic separation from her family and friends, and the dangers that dog her daily life. She will probably be routinely beaten, raped and demeaned, neither able to access healthcare or education nor attain any economic, political, and social status. And it\u2019s called marriage.<\/p>\n Not very romantic, is it?<\/p>\n As we think about our valentine \u2013 a sweetheart, your own children, a secret crush \u2013 let\u2019s think about the thousands of girls on this day, and every other day, who chose neither sweetheart nor spouse, for whom their place of rest is instead a torture chamber.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s make our love letter this year a cri de coeur<\/em> that demands social justice, bodily integrity and sexual autonomy for girls, so they may become empowered adults who chose when, and whom, to marry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Excerpts from a powerful article by Ashley Judd calling for an end to child \u2018marriages\u2019 everywhere. Ashley Judd is a humanitarian, writer and actor. This article was written with the support of the United Nations Population Fund http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2016\/feb\/14\/love-conquers-all-child-brides-sweetheart-spouse-ashley-judd As a girl in school, I loved Valentine\u2019s Day. I\u2019d make a card, with a boy, my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/blog-featured-image-logo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O7nG-Te","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3426,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3424\/revisions\/3426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Child-Marriage-Stats-03\"](\"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Child-Marriage-Stats-03.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n