SIERRA LEONE
“Fifteen-year-old Fatmata (right),
her son and her friend Sia visit the
girls’ club set up in Freetown by the
UN Population Fund. Fatmata was
recently married; it happened at the
time of the Ebola epidemic, when
the schools had been closed.
When this happens, it triggers a
surge in child marriages.
Families think that when their
daughters are unable to go to
school, they’re no longer
protected. They have these girls
on their hands and they say,
‘Let’s marry them.’ Education is a
major protective factor against
child marriage, and our non-
profit organisation Too Young to
Wed gives 450 scholarships every
year to the girls and communities
represented in our photographs.”
YEMEN
“This is 14-year-old Asia. She’s
the mother of a two-year-old boy
and a baby girl. The thing that broke
my heart is that she was still bleeding
after giving birth to her second child.
She didn’t know why; she had neither
clean underwear nor medical
supplies. She was sad and anxious
about her life, but she didn’t have any
choice. If you’re 14 and you have two
children, you lose control over your
health and your destiny. You will not
decide anything: when you have sex,
when you will have another child...
A senior gynaecologist in the area
told me, ‘At 14, in your country, girls’
lives are just beginning. In our country,
it is when girls’ lives are ending.’”