In one case in Rajasthan where her teenage sisters were also being married, a five-year-old bride named Rajani fell asleep before her wedding ceremony began.Īn uncle lifted her from her cot and carried her in the moonlight toward the Hindu priest and future husband - a ten-year-old boy. The younger daughters, some aged five, tend to be added on discreetly, their names kept off the invitations. In India girls may not legally marry before the age of 18 - but ceremonies involving girls in their teens may be overlooked. In a project for National Geographic magazine, journalist Cynthia Gorney and photographer Stephanie Sinclair travelled to Yemen and Rajasthan in India to investigate the extent of this shocking practice. Wedding ceremonies are often held in the middle of the night, with the whole village keeping the secret for fear there might be a police raid.
Whole communities often prescribe to the notion that it is as an appropriate way for a young woman to grow up when the alternative is the risk she loses her virginity to someone before she marries. Forced early marriage thrives in many regions, often in defiance of national laws.
