FOCUS: Child Marriage

Every year 14 million girls are married worldwide. One in seven girls in the developing world is married before her 15th birthday – some as young as eight or nine. In 2010, over 67 million women ages 20-24 had been married as girls, and, if the trend continues, 142 million will be married by 2020. Human Rights Watch is one of the founding members of global movement Girls Not Brides and has produced new research and advocacy campaigns to expose and change child marriage practices in South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan.