Child Marriage

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A write-up on Baobab's successful project on advocacy against child marriage in Nigeria. The community was instantly mobilized, as if it had been waiting for this all along!

The Afghan Presidential Palace has awarded Liah Jawad the Medal of Malalai for her courageous fight for women's rights. She is the Director of Foundation of Solidarity for Justice (FOSJ), which ran a project with WELDD on wending child marriage.

Between January and April 2012, Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Sénégal (GREFELS) organised activities for and around Women’s International Day, targeting girls and young leaders on gender, leadership and human rights. The main objective of this celebration was to enhance young girls’ leadership by providing them the chance, for the first time in their lives, to spead directly against authorities on their views on child marriage and CVAW.

In Indonesia’s East Java Jember District, Najma Milla, a young lady in the village of Wringin Sukowono is steadily making waves.

Ms. Milla is an alumna of RAHIMA (one of WELDD’s partner programme in Indonesia), which is an organization that advocates women’s equality based on modern and democratic ideas, and emphasizes its presence on a grassroots level. Ms. Milla is a breath of fresh air: with her husband Nurul, she is establishing an Islamic public-cum-boarding school (pesantren) not solely based on religion. Her pesantren would be the first school of its kind in the village.

For more information related this film you can visit IWE's website Perempuan Memimpin http://www.perempuanmemimpin.com/?lang=en
Or you can watch the full film at our Youtube https://youtu.be/Rfue7NTTRKA?list=PLEe59SLejvuy5iQ3zo_cmJdtPMTpMuN--

The Iranian government must improve its rules on women's and girls' right to free and informed marriage, according to Justice for Iran's latest report. Current government policies permit infringements on girls' and women's autonomy and are incompatible with Iran's international human rights commitments. In 2013 thousands of girls under 15 were forced to marry.

Kadidiatou Baldé , a 14 year old girl from Dinguiraye village in Senegal, was in fifth grade when her parents announced that she was to be married to a 24 year old man from the local area in April this year. Kadidiatou was disadvantaged by the fact that her father is dead and her mother and uncles, who she lives with, are poor. So when the man asked to marry her, her family accepted as the man comes from a wealthy family and has plans to migrate to Europe. Nonetheless, Kadidiatou was by no means content with the plans made for her; she was a bright student who wished most of all to continue her education.

Shirkat Gah has given women new understanding of their situations and their rights, and has empowered them to challenge the injustices around them. Here, three women say what Shirkat Gah has done for them.