Comment on Number of child brides to soar in Africa, rights groups say

Number of child brides to soar in Africa, rights groups say

While she had been sitting in her seventh-grade classroom in South Africa, her male relatives had received a $570 bride price for her from a man she had never met who was twice her age. An estimated 125 million African girls are child brides, with that number expected to rise to 310 million by 2050, creating a legacy of “lost childhoods and shattered futures,” according to a report released by UNICEF on Thursday that demanded more aggressive government actions to end the practice on the continent. Across Africa girls are being married off to pay off family debts, to keep them free of sin or simply because it’s tradition, but the lives of these child brides are ones of violence, poverty and increased risk of HIV, UNICEF said.

 

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