Although it’s unheard of in the U.S., the custom of marrying off girls as young as 10 is widespread in some countries and cultures and one former child bride, now 38 and living in London, says the practice must end!

Alemtsahye Gebrekidan of Ethiopia can remember the exact moment her childhood came to end. It was at the age of 10 when her mother interrupted her play to announce, “You’re going to marry.”

Two months later, she was married to a boy of 16. She gave birth to a son at the age of 13 and was widowed a year later.

To this day, she still feels angry with her parents for ruining her life by forcing her to marry so young.

“My parents and his parents decided [on the marriage],” she told the Daily Mail. “I didn’t choose.”

Before that traumatic event, she remembers life in Ethiopia’s northern Tigris province as being happy and healthy.

“I was in school, although I stopped the school when I was married. I do have happy memories of childhood – it was just eat and play.”

Childhood as she knew it came to an end the day she  married her husband, a boy she met for the first time on her wedding day.

“I didn’t know him,” she said. “I was OK when I saw him – he was a child like me. He was upset as well, the same like me… he was 16 years old.”

Alemtsahye was lucky to have been given a husband near her own age because most child brides are forced to marry much older men. But she was still forced to leave home and school and begin to live as a traditional Ethiopian wife.

“I was collecting water, wood and cooking for my husband and the days were like that,” she remembers. “The water was far away and not near to our house. We would go far, then come back and I would cook for my husband.”

She was 13 when her son, Tefsalen, was born, and remembers the pregnancy and childbirth to have been particularly painful because of the immaturity of her body.

“When I was pregnant, it was painful and I cried. And also when the baby was delivered it was so painful because I was a child,” she said.

Life was about to become much more difficult, however, as Ethiopia entered the throes of a vicious civil war. It would eventually take the life of her young husband who died when he was just 19 years old.

Alone and with a year-old baby to support, she quickly fell into the hands of traffickers who promised her a better life abroad. Alemtsahye ended up in Egypt working as an unpaid domestic servant. From there, she was smuggled into the UK but was left there to fend for herself.

At 16 years of age, the former child-bride was now forced to seek asylum and was fortunate to find foster parents to take her in. She went back to school, learned English, and is now helping to run a charity called Girls Not Brides which is dedicated to putting an end to the scourge of child brides in the world.

Most people have no idea that a third of girls living in the world today are married before the age of 18. One in nine are wed before their 15th birthday. The International Center for Research on Women predicts that if the present trend continues, 142 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday over the next decade, which amounts to 14.2 million girls a year.

Marrying at such an early age can be devastating for these children. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20’s. This is why pregnancy remains the leading cause of death worldwide for girls ages 15 to 19. Child brides also face a higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases because they tend to marry older men who have had more sex partners.

Countries with the highest incidence of child brides include Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Guinea, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Mali, to name a few. The problem isn’t just isolated in Africa, however. India, Nepal, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic are also big offenders.

GirlsNotBrides reports that child marriage is a tradition in many places and stems from the cultural belief that girls are a burden and not as valuable as boys. Poverty also plays a role as poor parents try to reduce the family’s expenses by marrying off their daughters. In areas where a “bride price” is paid to the family, it can bring in needed income; where dowries must be paid to a groom, it is often less costly if the girl is young and uneducated. Many parents also marry off their girls thinking that it is in her best interest and will keep her safe in areas where girls are at high risk of physical or sexual assault.

GirlsNotBrides believes one of the ways to combat these entrenched attitudes is to convince parents that girls who avoid early marriage and stay in school are likely to make a much great contribution to their family and community in the long run.

It will also spare these girls from suffering a traumatic initiation into sexual relationships and from falling victim to domestic abuse.

“Child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects,” said Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UNFPA.

“A girl who is married as a child is one whose potential will not be fulfilled.”

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com