No consent: no choice but to marry their kidnappers
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‘If a man loves a girl or secretly admires her, he will keep monitoring her movements without her knowledge. One day when she is alone in an isolated place, he will capture her and have sexual intercourse (engagement sex) with her to mark her as his wife.’
– An adolescent girl shared that view with researchers during a focus group discussion in Kidepo-Lobunet Village, Karamoja sub-region in Uganda.
On World Sexual Health Day, which in 2023 had the theme of consent, Communications Officer, Florence Blondel looks at this under-reported type of forced marriage, and what can be done.
‘My husband kidnapped me when I was 17. He started beating me three days later. When I was three months pregnant he beat me so hard that I lost the baby.’
– From UNFPA’s Child Marriage in Kyrgyzstan
In various regions around the globe, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, young girls and women – especially those below the age of 18 – must fight with their prospective spouses, who are fre...
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