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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house Stop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. So just as

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Speaker 1: a reminder for listeners out there. UM, a little while

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Speaker 1: ago in podcast history, Molly and I did an episode

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Speaker 1: on human trafficking and sex trafficking, and one aspect of

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Speaker 1: sex trafficking that we didn't get to address that really

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Speaker 1: needs to be talked about, I think, even more than

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Speaker 1: it is in the media and elsewhere, is the issue

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Speaker 1: of child marriage and child brides. Right. Yeah, imagine if

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Speaker 1: you were eight years old living in Afghanistan or India, UM,

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Speaker 1: some states, Uh, you don't get to dream about your

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Speaker 1: wedding day the same way that girls in the West do. Right,

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Speaker 1: maybe you h A lot of girls in poor rural

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Speaker 1: societies are betrothed to much older men, some before they're born,

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Speaker 1: some when they're very young, and a lot are married

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Speaker 1: off when they're eight, ten, twelve years old. Right, And

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Speaker 1: a lot of times once a girl the standard for

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Speaker 1: a girl being marriageable in a lot of these um

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Speaker 1: communities because it varies by from country to country, and

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Speaker 1: then also from tribe to tribe, community to community, state

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Speaker 1: to state. Once the girl has her monarchy, gets her

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Speaker 1: first period, she is marriageable, and like you said, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: sometimes they're even betrothed long before that might happen. So

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Speaker 1: let's take a step back, maybe and and provide a

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Speaker 1: global outlook on where child marriage is most prominent and

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Speaker 1: how many girls are being wedded off right. Most of

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Speaker 1: these marriages of young girls and older men take place

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Speaker 1: in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia UM. According to UNIEF.

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Speaker 1: In the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of Asia. UM,

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Speaker 1: marriage at or shortly after puberty is common. Um. Some

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Speaker 1: some cultures believe, especially if they're living in a violent

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Speaker 1: community maybe their civil strife going on, that as soon

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Speaker 1: as a girl has her period and she can therefore

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Speaker 1: technically reproduce, then she's just a magnet for trouble. And

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Speaker 1: by trouble you mean things like having sex or even

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Speaker 1: being sexually assaulted. Right, um, And just to put some

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Speaker 1: some numbers around this. According to a two thousand nine

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Speaker 1: article and the Review in Epstetrics and Gynecology in South Asia,

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Speaker 1: thirty one million marriages include girls under eighteen. In Sub

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Speaker 1: Saharan Africa, that number is fourteen million. In Latin America

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Speaker 1: and the Caribbean it's six point six million. And obviously

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Speaker 1: in the in the United States, UM, girls under eighteen

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Speaker 1: UM might end up in a similar kind of situations,

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Speaker 1: but it is far less common. UM in the number

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Speaker 1: one country where this is a problem would be Niger

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Speaker 1: where UM they have the highest rate of child marriage

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Speaker 1: at seventy six point six percent. And I believe by

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Speaker 1: by child marriage this means girls under eighteen who are married.

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Speaker 1: And that's followed by Chad, Bangladesh, Molly, and Guinea. Right. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: there is one writer and it was I think it's

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Speaker 1: of Stetrics and Gynecology, pointed out that there are different

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Speaker 1: terms that people use for when for when young girls

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Speaker 1: are married off UM. A lot of people use the

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Speaker 1: term child bride or early marriage, and she argues that

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Speaker 1: the writer argues that these are not sufficient terms to

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Speaker 1: express what's really going on. Her Her point is that

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Speaker 1: child bride sounds almost like, yeah, we're getting married, and

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Speaker 1: that's that's just not appropriate. UM. Early marriage doesn't quite

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Speaker 1: paint the picture either, because I mean, I think it's

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Speaker 1: an early marriage of someone who's nineteen gets married, So

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Speaker 1: that doesn't quite indicate what we're talking about today, which

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Speaker 1: is young children and those the pros and cons of

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Speaker 1: that kind of terminology reminds me of conversations that will

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Speaker 1: often come up between uh, female circumcision versus female genital mutilation.

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Speaker 1: Some say that, you know, in a similar way, female

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Speaker 1: circumcision seems to sort of soften the actual procedure of

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Speaker 1: of what's going on that is more like genital mutilation,

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Speaker 1: which obviously has a much harsher harsher edge. UM. So,

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Speaker 1: I guess in the in the advocacy world, child marriage

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Speaker 1: is the preferred term. And just to just to offer

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Speaker 1: a little bit of insight on a case study on

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Speaker 1: why this happens in Niger, like I said, that has

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Speaker 1: the highest rate of child marriage. It really comes out

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Speaker 1: of a need to follow tradition and really reinforced ties

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Speaker 1: between communities and protect girls from out of wedlock pregnancy.

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Speaker 1: Like you brought up, Caroline, once the girl has her period,

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Speaker 1: she can get pregnant um and that can be a

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Speaker 1: huge um. If that happens, she'll be ostracized UM. And

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Speaker 1: it's a way to prevent that. This isn't born out

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Speaker 1: of you know, hatred for these girls and trying to

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Speaker 1: subject them to miserable lives of of marriages that aren't

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Speaker 1: of their choosing, um, But but a lot of very

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Speaker 1: common threads that that run throughout all of these different situations, right.

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Speaker 1: And you know you mentioned protecting the girls, sending them

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Speaker 1: off to get married to protect them. But in that

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Speaker 1: Obstetric Obstetrics and Gynecology article, the writer points out that

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Speaker 1: actually the opposite effect happens in that early marriages actually

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Speaker 1: make it more likely that the young wives will contract

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Speaker 1: diseases and be victims of sexual violence by their husbands. Um.

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Speaker 1: Because if you think about it, you know, these girls

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Speaker 1: are young, they haven't had sexual partners. You know, that's

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Speaker 1: exactly why some of these men are marrying them. Because

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Speaker 1: they're young, they're pure, they haven't had other partners, um.

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Speaker 1: But the men have, and in a lot of cases

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Speaker 1: they have other wives. So if they have contracted diseases,

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Speaker 1: they're going to end up giving it to these young girls,

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Speaker 1: who because of you know, how they are set up biologically,

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Speaker 1: being so young and not fully developed, they're actually more

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Speaker 1: prone to contracting these uh, sexually transmitted infections because of

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Speaker 1: injuries they could sustain during sexual intercourse. Right, just so

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Speaker 1: you have you an idea, um in, I believe this

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Speaker 1: is coming from UNICEF in Uganda. The HIV prevalence rate

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Speaker 1: of married girls and single girls between the ages of

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Speaker 1: fifteen and nineteen years is eighty nine percent and sixty

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Speaker 1: six percent, respectively. And that's that's the eighty nine percent

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Speaker 1: for the married young girls versus sixty six percent for

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Speaker 1: the single girls, and their rates of contracting HPV and

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Speaker 1: cervical cancer and developing cervical cancer are much higher than

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Speaker 1: the general population. But let's let's back up for a

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Speaker 1: little bit and and talk about a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about why this happens, because um as listeners probably assume

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Speaker 1: this is going on in what are called traditional societies,

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Speaker 1: which unify UNI stuff would define as consisting of extended

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Speaker 1: families young ages at marriage, spouse is chosen by elders,

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Speaker 1: absorption of the newlywed into households basically like the young

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Speaker 1: girl becomes part of her taken away from her family

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Speaker 1: um and then having as many children right away as

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Speaker 1: you can. Right, it extends fertility when you start having

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Speaker 1: babies at you know, twelve well, I don't know, fourteen,

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Speaker 1: you know, years old, you are going to be having

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Speaker 1: babies for a long time. But the notion, though, of

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Speaker 1: your parents picking your partner for you is not all

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Speaker 1: that uncommon, right, It's not weird to them. But what

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Speaker 1: is weird is the idea of a woman, you know,

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Speaker 1: growing up in her family, having a normal adolescence that

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Speaker 1: what you know, what we consider normal, developing a sense

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Speaker 1: of identity and choosing her own partner. Right. And if

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Speaker 1: anyone's ever read a History of Marriage by Stephanie Coon's,

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Speaker 1: you know that marriage way before the evolution of what

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Speaker 1: we have today. Um, in terms of a love marriage

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Speaker 1: where you know, I can you know, fall in love

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Speaker 1: with whoever I want and put a put a ring

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Speaker 1: on and make it happen. Uh. Marriage has always been,

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Speaker 1: since the dawn of the dawn of marriage done, since

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Speaker 1: we've been doing it. It's always been a tool for

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Speaker 1: economic security, communal bonding, and paternalistic sexual protection, those three things,

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Speaker 1: and those are the things that still come up over

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Speaker 1: and over again. And it's not so much an issue

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Speaker 1: with parents having a role in selecting who you're going

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Speaker 1: to marry. That still happens all the time in India,

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Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily a problem, but when that happens

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Speaker 1: with thirteen year olds, fourteen year olds being married off

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Speaker 1: for economic reasons, that's when it. Yeah, a big, a

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Speaker 1: big aspect of this child marriage is that these women

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Speaker 1: are girls, I should say, come from really poor rural

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Speaker 1: families and their their families just consider them a burden,

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Speaker 1: a financial burden. And so we did talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the protection from violence and sexual violence, but

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Speaker 1: another big aspect is the financial aspect. Yeah, there was

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Speaker 1: a story recently on Women's e News about so called

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Speaker 1: drought rides in Kenya right now, because there's a terrible

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Speaker 1: drought going on in Kenya and for some families, the

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Speaker 1: only way that they are able to get any kind

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Speaker 1: of money or any kind of food in their household

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Speaker 1: is through dowries for their daughters. So there, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's been an uptick in these um drought ridden area

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Speaker 1: is in child marriage just so they can get some

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Speaker 1: kind of food on the table, right. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: a groom's family could give money or cattle, horses, you

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Speaker 1: know what, whatever whatever the bride's family can use to

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Speaker 1: make money. And Kristen going back to Uganda in the

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Speaker 1: northern part of the country. UM. Some parents have been

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Speaker 1: known to marry off their daughters to members of the

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Speaker 1: militia UH not only to gain maybe honor, maybe a

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Speaker 1: slightly higher social status, but to actually just gain protection

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Speaker 1: UM from people other people who might threaten them. UM. Actually,

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Speaker 1: and according to UNI SEF, child marriage is on the

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Speaker 1: rise in countries that are experiencing civil strife. These countries

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Speaker 1: UM that show higher rates of child flavory, flavory and trafficking,

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Speaker 1: UM that have more children on the streets and high

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Speaker 1: levels of neglect and abandonment. These are the countries that

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Speaker 1: are showing a rise in child marriage. Because who's going

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Speaker 1: to protect my kid? I can't afford to do it.

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Speaker 1: And that's the point that Stella Schumacher, who is a

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Speaker 1: Unit SEP child protection specialist in New York made. She says,

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Speaker 1: often families marry off girls very young because they want

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Speaker 1: to protect them, not realizing the dangerous that they face.

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Speaker 1: It requires a change of social norms, and legislation isn't

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Speaker 1: enough because kind of going back to you know comment

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Speaker 1: that we made earlier, this isn't um. These families don't

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Speaker 1: wish doom and gloom on their their daughters. A lot

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Speaker 1: of times it is culturally culturally ingrained or either force

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Speaker 1: or economic conditions or civil unrest. If your mother, your grandmother,

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Speaker 1: your great grandmother, if they all went through it, that's

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Speaker 1: what they know. You know, maybe it's not their ideal

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Speaker 1: situation either, but it's the tradition in their culture. Um.

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Speaker 1: But even if it is has become a generational cycle,

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Speaker 1: even if it is linked to poverty and civil unrest,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps parents have you know, these very paternalistic ideas

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Speaker 1: of you know, protecting their daughter's honor by sort of

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Speaker 1: sending them off before they even have a chance to

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Speaker 1: be deflowered. Uh, it is dangerous. It puts these girls

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Speaker 1: in in such direct harm physically. Um, Premature pregnancy happens

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Speaker 1: so much more often when you have these underage bride right,

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Speaker 1: and by premature, I mean we mean these girls should

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Speaker 1: not be getting pregnant because of the damage it can

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Speaker 1: do to their body and the damage it can do

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Speaker 1: to the baby itself. Um, young girls are actually fifteen

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Speaker 1: times more likely to die during childbirth according to PDS.

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Speaker 1: They they had a series about child marriage and I

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Speaker 1: didn't know this, but it's actually, uh, the leading cause

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Speaker 1: of death worldwide for girls fifteen to nineteen. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: even if these young girls survive childbirth, a lot of

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Speaker 1: times UM they might have irreversible health problems such as fistula,

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Speaker 1: which causes chronic incontinence and often leads to abandonment and

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Speaker 1: isolation because they're just ostracized from from their group. Their

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Speaker 1: husband wants nothing to do with them, society wants something

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Speaker 1: to do with them. And there are two million girls

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Speaker 1: living with a fistula, a lot of which is related

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Speaker 1: to this kind of forceful sex at a very young

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Speaker 1: age childbirth at a very young age. There have been

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Speaker 1: um a number of stories about child brides who have

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Speaker 1: bled to death after their their husbands have had sex

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Speaker 1: with them for the first time because their their bodies

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Speaker 1: were so small they can't take it. There was a

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Speaker 1: four days after she was married. UM her basically her

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Speaker 1: internal organs had suffered major damage because of sexual intercourse

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Speaker 1: with her husband. And it's also not good if they

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Speaker 1: do have a child, it's it's not good for UM.

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Speaker 1: But the odds of the baby surviving birth is not

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Speaker 1: very good, and mortality for mothers under the age twenty

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Speaker 1: is about UM sixty higher than it is for the

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Speaker 1: general population, right, And I mean these women are experiencing

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Speaker 1: abuse too. They're more likely to experience sexual abuse, UM beating, abandonment,

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Speaker 1: so I mean not a good situation. Yeah. There was

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Speaker 1: a pretty intense, uh photo essay from Foreign Policy magazine

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Speaker 1: I think he was a thirty five year old husband

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Speaker 1: who had tried to kill his fifteen year old wife

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Speaker 1: ended up killing the grant her grandmother in the process.

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Speaker 1: But you do hear anecdotally from the you know, the

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Speaker 1: advocacy workers who are going in and trying to in

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Speaker 1: the practice of child marriage a lot of you hear

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Speaker 1: about a lot of times because the girls are separated

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Speaker 1: from their families and taken away and they might never

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Speaker 1: see their family again. There's a lot of domestic violence

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Speaker 1: that goes along with that. And of course if these

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Speaker 1: girls are married off so young, they're not going to

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Speaker 1: complete their education, right. It just sort of fosters a

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Speaker 1: cycle of illiteracy, not only a literacy, but poverty of

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Speaker 1: course too, because if you don't get an education, how

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Speaker 1: can you raise your socioeconomic status, get a better job,

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Speaker 1: or get a job at all. If you are taken

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Speaker 1: as a child directly from your parents, you know, maybe

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Speaker 1: you had a little schooling. But if you're taken directly

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Speaker 1: out of your house, you know, married off to some

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Speaker 1: older man, when are you going to advance your education.

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Speaker 1: You don't get the chance to develop your intellect, develop

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Speaker 1: a sense of self, develop any self confidence. So you

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Speaker 1: are more likely to be not only subservient, but um

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Speaker 1: manipulated by your husband. Yeah, and and that's such an

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Speaker 1: important key in terms of development in a lot of

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Speaker 1: these countries. Um, Like we've talked about many times during

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Speaker 1: the podcast, women are the key to, like you said,

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Speaker 1: ending cycles of poverty and raising up socioeconomic levels. Studies

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Speaker 1: have shown over over again that when you educate the mothers,

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Speaker 1: then it passes along to the children. Not to say

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Speaker 1: the men don't need help but attention as well. But

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Speaker 1: a lot of times, like if you give, if you

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Speaker 1: get monetary aid to to the women in the house,

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Speaker 1: it will they are better stewards of that. Then the

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Speaker 1: men are similarly with with education. And if you want

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Speaker 1: to learn more about that, I highly recommend reading Half

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Speaker 1: the Sky by Nicholas Kristoph and Cheryl Wu Dunne, which

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Speaker 1: we have mentioned before on the podcast. Well, according to

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Speaker 1: the International Center for Research on Women, eight or more

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Speaker 1: years of schooling makes it much less likely that a

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Speaker 1: girl will marry early. She gets to develop that sense

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Speaker 1: of intellect, sense of self and have a sort of

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Speaker 1: a childhood or real childhood. Yeah, and I one thing

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Speaker 1: that we haven't mentioned yet is that in nineteen forty eight,

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Speaker 1: the U n adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

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Speaker 1: which states that individuals must enter into marriage freely, with

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Speaker 1: full consent, and must be a full age. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: wild marriage is a violation of human rights. Right, this

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Speaker 1: is a major human rights issue that we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: And I until I started doing research on this, you know,

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Speaker 1: you hear about child marriage, um, but you don't realize

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Speaker 1: how widespread it is. I think one of the estimates

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Speaker 1: that I saw was by there would be a hundred

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Speaker 1: million girls between million girls. Well, so many of them

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Speaker 1: go unregistered? Oh yeah, because in a lot of communities

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Speaker 1: there the weddings are held not that frequently, or they're

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Speaker 1: held in secret um. So you know, they don't it's

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Speaker 1: not like they go to the courthouse and get a

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Speaker 1: wedding license, a marriage license for an eight year old, right. UM.

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Speaker 1: But going back to that education piece, UM, Sri Lanka

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Speaker 1: in the state of Kerala and India both have high

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Speaker 1: rates for first or high ages, I should say, for

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Speaker 1: first marriages. And they also happened to share the priority

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Speaker 1: of education for men and women, which sparks greater support

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Speaker 1: for women's rights. Right. They too, there's actual conversations and

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Speaker 1: and opinions developed about consent, consent to marriage or sexual intercourse. UM.

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Speaker 1: There's greater support for delaying marriage. Right. And there's UM

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Speaker 1: a nonprofit organization called the Verny Project which UM is

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Speaker 1: operating in I forget the state that it's operating in

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Speaker 1: in uh in India, but they go into these communities

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Speaker 1: and really focus on educating the women, educating the females,

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Speaker 1: trying to break those UM, those generational cycles to keep

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Speaker 1: the girls in school, which in effect delays marriage. And

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Speaker 1: one person we have to talk about before in this

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Speaker 1: podcast is a Jude Ali. Yes. Yes, she was married

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Speaker 1: at a very young age UM to a man much older. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and she managed to escape. She took some pennies, a

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Speaker 1: couple of coins, got on the bus went to the

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Speaker 1: courthouse and she sat there until someone finally said, UM,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? Yeah, and she said, I want

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Speaker 1: a divorce and the judge she had a female attorney

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Speaker 1: who helped her. Um, and she was granted a divorce.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is it captured worldwide attention. Well, she

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Speaker 1: was ten years old and the time, I think Time

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Speaker 1: magazine said she is the youngest known divorcee in the world,

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Speaker 1: and this was in two thousand eight, right, And she

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Speaker 1: actually her story inspired two other girls soon thereafter from

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Speaker 1: her village to get to get divorces also super divorces.

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Speaker 1: And also thanks to her testimony, Yemen raised its minimal

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Speaker 1: age for marriage from fifteen to eighteen. But that said,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these countries where this is happening, the

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Speaker 1: minimum marriage age is eighteen. But it's going on under

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Speaker 1: the table because this is all about um dowries and

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Speaker 1: economics and survival exactly. Well, I think what really struck

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Speaker 1: me was at the very end of that article about

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Speaker 1: this poor girl. UM, I mean, good for her getting

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Speaker 1: out of that situation, but this quote that she has

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Speaker 1: the she was interviewed and the interviewer asked her whether

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Speaker 1: she hopes to meet her Prince Charming one day and

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Speaker 1: this little girl ten years old is already cynical. She

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Speaker 1: sits back in the chair, She folds her arms across

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Speaker 1: her chest, and she says, I no longer think about marriage.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, ten years old, you've been traumatized, you've

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Speaker 1: already gone through a divorce. Yeah, yeah, you might be

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Speaker 1: considering some other issues like education. Her number one priority

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Speaker 1: when the people were the reporter was talking to her

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Speaker 1: was education. She wanted to go to college. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: think she wanted to be a lawyer, right, yeah, which

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Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Um, But we wanted to

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Speaker 1: shed more light on child marriage because I personally think

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Speaker 1: that it deserves a lot more attention, right and Una

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Speaker 1: stuff has said that they don't think that not only

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Speaker 1: the media, but actual women and children's rights groups, they

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Speaker 1: don't think that these groups give enough attention to it. Sure, well,

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Speaker 1: hopefully you know, the more people to talk about listeners, tell,

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Speaker 1: tell your friends, be that person talking about child marriage.

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Speaker 1: I know it's a downer topic and it was a

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Speaker 1: little bit, but you need to get to know word.

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Speaker 1: It is good to know. And if you are interested

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Speaker 1: in learning more about what you can do to help

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Speaker 1: or organizations that are combating child marriage around the world.

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Speaker 1: Check out care dot org. Um Uni Stuff is working

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Speaker 1: on the International Organization for Women's Development, and the Verney

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Speaker 1: Project which I mentioned earlier are just a few of

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Speaker 1: the nonprofits and NGOs out there working to keep these

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Speaker 1: girls in school um and break generational cycles of child marriage.

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Speaker 1: And if you have any thoughts that you'd like to

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Speaker 1: share with me and Caroline about this issue or any

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Speaker 1: other topic on your mind, our email address is mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. And in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: we have a couple of emails for you. I've got

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Speaker 1: one here um not to totally switch gears, but to

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Speaker 1: totally switch gears. I have one here from Ethan in

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Speaker 1: regard to our douche podcast. Let's hear it. He says,

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Speaker 1: my question is regarding the use of douche bag as

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Speaker 1: a pejorative. I happen to love the term, and in

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Speaker 1: this era of sensitivity, many of the insults that we

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Speaker 1: casually tossed about in our childhood are verboten, and justly

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Speaker 1: so in my opinion. However, I'd really love to keep

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Speaker 1: douche bag in the lexicon now, since douching is actually

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Speaker 1: an unhealthy concept thought up by businesses that don't have

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Speaker 1: women's health in mind, and since they're sold to under

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Speaker 1: educated or ill informed people based on insecurities that societies

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Speaker 1: and still can the case be made that douching is

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Speaker 1: evil and therefore it is okay for us to consider

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Speaker 1: continue using douche and douche bag as insults, provided, of course,

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Speaker 1: that we are not regressing to the sixties unattractive co

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Speaker 1: ed use. Sure, I'm fine, Yeah, I'm I'm quely fine

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Speaker 1: with making fun of of douching. Yeah, because, like like

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Speaker 1: Ethan said, it is unhealthy. Right. Well, I have an

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Speaker 1: email from Kristen, not you, another one, um, but this

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Speaker 1: is another tall Kristen. She says, I'm a five ft

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Speaker 1: eleven and three quarters women of Germanic and Scandinavian descent.

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Speaker 1: My husband is a five eight or almost man of

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Speaker 1: Chinese descent. When we started dating in college, I did

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Speaker 1: feel awkward dating someone four inches shorter than me, but

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Speaker 1: as a friend told me at the time, all men

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Speaker 1: are the same height. Lying down, I'm really glad I

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Speaker 1: didn't dismiss him or have height requirements for dating like

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Speaker 1: I've heard other women do. After all, I'm sure I've

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Speaker 1: been overlooked because of my height. Our son has my

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Speaker 1: height and my husband's good looks, so he has the

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Speaker 1: best of both. World dream Boat, so good well Kristen

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Speaker 1: and Ethan, thanks for those emails and thanks to everyone

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Speaker 1: else it has emailed us um and also thanks to

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Speaker 1: everyone who has headed over to Facebook like you should

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Speaker 1: do right now if you haven't already, and leave a

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Speaker 1: comment and like us say hello. You can also catch

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Speaker 1: us over on Twitter. Our handle is at mom Stuff

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Speaker 1: Podcast and again our email address is mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And as always, you can

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Speaker 1: check out what we're doing during the week on our blog,

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Speaker 1: It's stuff Mom Never told You at how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

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Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as

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Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

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