'They need to be excited about education. They don't see a future after finishing school. We have to create a society where young people have something more than marriage to look forward to.' Via TRF_Stories
SURKHET, Nepal, Dec 11 - If it wasn't for her self-annointed"Big Sister", Punam Pun Magar would have quit school at 14 to marry a man nearly twice her age, bear him babies and tend house.Two in five Nepalese girls just like Magar marry before they turn 18: one of the highest rates in the world, despite child marriage being illegal in the impoverished Himalayan country.
Hundreds of Big Sisters - many of them former child brides themselves - have volunteered to counsel teenage girls like Magar, as well as their families and communities, on the impact of marrying young, using their own stories as cautionary tales. This drives a vicious cycle of ill health, malnutrition and ignorance, since a child bride is more likely to leave school and experience problems in pregnancy or birth, say campaigners.Nepal has the third highest child marriage prevalence in South Asia, according to the United Nations.
"I felt like killing myself. I remember how horrible it all was - but that is what motivates me every day to help these girls. They should not have to go through what I did," Bantha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Ruchal the official said it was important to normalise live-in relationships so teenagers did not feel compelled to marry.
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