Login Toast Message
Login toast message for the successfully login user
- Toast Message
-
Welcome Back, {{username}}👋
Logging you in....
Lets make a difference today.
Content warning: The following story is about child marriage, which might be triggering for some readers. We’re sharing this story because it sends an important message against the practice of child marriage, but please use your discretion before you proceed.
In Neha’s community in Nepal, it’s common for girls to marry older men. With arranged marriage as a societal norm, families often prioritized paying for their daughters’ dowries instead of finishing high school.
Girls in this community recognize that completing high school is the key to changing their futures, not early marriage. But overcoming years of generational barriers and changing cultural beliefs is not easy.
At the heart of this story is a brave young woman named Neha.
At 14-years old, her parents agreed to marry her off to a “rich man from India, who owned a mobile phone shop,” as Neha explains.
She learned that her soon-to-be-husband was much older and had been married only five days prior but had already lost that wife when she ran away. Neha saw the red flags, but her parents were blinded by the perceived benefits, such as not having to pay a dowry since he’d already received one from the previous girl.
Neha did everything she could to try and refuse the marriage. When pleading with her parents didn’t work, she even attempted to throw herself into hot oil to demonstrate how seriously unhappy she was about getting married. In a last-ditch effort, she escaped to her sister’s house and believed she would never see her parents again.
During that time the family came across a World Vision intervention focused on the importance of education. Neha’s parents received training on the benefits of education and were encouraged to keep their five daughters in school. Neha was delighted when she discovered that she was able to return to school and avoid getting married. A year later when the opportunity to get married came up again, her parents were able to support her in her decision to refuse.
It's been four years since Neha first faced the threat of child marriage. Now 18-years old, Neha is focused on finishing her studies. As part of the child sponsorship program, she received training to better understand her rights and reproductive health, and gained important life skills such as financial literacy.
Empowered with education, Neha now leads the charge to end child marriage in her community. With support from World Vision, she’s training a network of female activists on how to resist child marriage, recognize the signs of it happening in the community and report cases of child marriage to the authorities. This network provides ears on the ground about what’s happening in the community and creates a safe space for vulnerable girls to confide in their peers.
Thanks to her efforts, Neha is credited with stopping three child marriages and preventing countless others from happening.
Since 2018, more than 500 child marriages have been stopped, and most of those have been stopped by other children. —World Vision Nepal
“Others say they want to be like me. They see me as good and want to be like me,” Neha states.
She is a beacon of hope for young girls who suddenly feel they have someone they can turn to, and proof of the amazing things that can happen when a girl stays in school.
Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and the opportunity to fulfil their potential or be independent. Statistics show that girls who get married before the age of 18 are much more likely to be victims of abuse and less likely to stay in school.
Fighting child marriage can be difficult, especially in places where the importance of traditional practices outweighs the importance of the law, meaning that simply making child marriage illegal (which it is in Nepal) is not enough.
The best way to delay marriage is by keeping girls in school, and there’s data to back this up. According to the World Bank, for every year a girl stays in secondary education, her likelihood of getting married decreases six percentage points.
This is why World Vision’s sponsorship program puts education at the centre of its programming, especially in places like Nepal where rates of child marriage are higher.
Sponsoring a girl and providing them with an education isn’t just our best chance at eradicating child marriage—it also enables long-term sustainable change. When girls are educated, they’re less likely to become pregnant or be victims of violence. Education provides girls with the tools to break free from the chains of generational poverty, creating a brighter future for themselves and those around them.
And if you need proof of that, just look at Neha. World Vision staff in Nepal shared that children like Neha have been pivotal in driving down child marriage in the areas that World Vision operates. Since 2018, more than 500 child marriages have been stopped, and most of those have been stopped by other children.
When you sponsor a girl, you open the doors to a world of possibility – not just for the girl you sponsor, but for their entire community.