Girls Not Brides, a global partnership working to end child marriage, has released a video pleading with the world to join the effort to end child marriage. Now.
In the video, members of The Elders – a group of global leaders working for peace and human rights – including Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu and Ireland’s first female president, Mary Robinson, describe the devastating impact of child marriage on the future of young girls around the world, quoting some shocking statistics.
“Every year, 10 million girls are forcibly married before the age of 18,” Robinson says.
“There is something like 25,000 girls everyday,” says Elder Garça Machel.
Robinson, Tutu and Machel say that while change is happening on a small scale, it has, so far, been too slow.
“We can do more than imagine. We can end child marriage now. Let girls be girls and not brides,” says Tutu.