(FILES) In this picture taken 30 April 2(01 of16)
Open Image ModalFunda, INDIA: (FILES) In this picture taken 30 April 2006, Young Indian men (REAR) and women (FRONT) are paraded before a mass wedding ceremony during which some 50 youths and young women under the age of eighteen were married on the occassion of \'Akshya Tritya\'. in the village of Funda, some 30kms from Bhopal. The Indian parliament 19 December 2006, enacted a law to nullify child marriages if a minor girl complains she is forced into wedlock.Parliament\'s elected lower house voted the Prohibition of Child Marriages Prevention Bill into law which stipulates that each of India\'s 29 states must appoint special officials to help combat the scourge. Under an existing Indian law, the minimum age for marriage is 18 for women and 21 for men, but thousands of children -- some as young as five -- are married every year in rural areas. AFP PHOTO/STR/FILES (Photo credit should read STRDEL/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:STRDEL via Getty Images)
A peasant woman with her children takes(02 of16)
Open Image ModalA peasant woman with her children takes part in a demonstration for the International Women\'s Day at the Heroes\' Pantheon in Asucion on March 8, 2008. Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women\'s Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide. AFP PHOTO NORBERTO DUARTE (Photo credit should read NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:NORBERTO DUARTE via Getty Images)
Yemeni child Nojoud Mohammed Ali and her(03 of16)
Open Image ModalYemeni child Nojoud Mohammed Ali and her lawyer Shatha Mohammed Nasser are seen at a courthouse in Sanaa on April 15, 2008. A Yemeni court granted a divorce today to the eight-year-old Nojoud, whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage this year, saying he feared she might be kidnapped. AFP PHOTO/KHALED FAZAA (Photo credit should read KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:KHALED FAZAA via Getty Images)
Yemeni child Nojoud Mohammed Ali (2nd R)(04 of16)
Open Image ModalYemeni child Nojoud Mohammed Ali (2nd R), her lawyer Shatha Mohammed Nasser (2nd L), father Mohammed Ali Al-Ahdal (R) and husband Faez Ali Thameur (L) attend a public hearing regarding the young girl\'s arranged marriage at a court in Sanaa on April 15, 2008. A Yemeni court granted a divorce today to the eight-year-old Nojoud, whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage this year, saying he feared she might be kidnapped. AFP PHOTO/KHALED FAZAA (Photo credit should read KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:KHALED FAZAA via Getty Images)
Victims Of Forced Marriage In Burkina Faso(05 of16)
Open Image ModalKAYA, BURKINA FASO - MARCH 06: Refuge welcomes 50 girls illiterate, victims of forced marriage. They often spend several years and has taught reading and writing, cooking, gardening and sewing. Two young girls aged 16, on March 6, 2009 in Kaya, Burkina Faso. (Photo by Pascal Parrot/Getty Images) (credit:Pascal Parrot via Getty Images)
Victims Of Forced Marriage In Burkina Faso(06 of16)
Open Image ModalKAYA, BURKINA FASO - MARCH 06: Refuge welcomes 50 girls illiterate, victims of forced marriage. They often spend several years and has taught reading and writing, cooking, gardening and sewing. After school time, on March 6, 2009 in Kaya, Burkina Faso. (Photo by Pascal Parrot/Getty Images) (credit:Pascal Parrot via Getty Images)
Victims Of Forced Marriage In Burkina Faso(07 of16)
Open Image ModalKAYA, BURKINA FASO - MARCH 06: Refuge welcomes 50 girls illiterate, victims of forced marriage. They often spend several years and has taught reading and writing, cooking, gardening and sewing. Two young girls born in 1992, in the refuge since year 2006, on March 6, 2009 in Kaya, Burkina Faso. (Photo by Pascal Parrot/Getty Images) (credit:Pascal Parrot via Getty Images)
Victims Of Forced Marriage In Burkina Faso(08 of16)
Open Image ModalKAYA, BURKINA FASO - MARCH 06: Refuge welcomes 50 girls illiterate, victims of forced marriage. They often spend several years and has taught reading and writing, cooking, gardening and sewing. Sister Augustine, manager of the refuge, on March 6, 2009 in Kaya, Burkina Faso. (Photo by Pascal Parrot/Getty Images) (credit:Pascal Parrot via Getty Images)
Yemeni former child-bride Nujud Mohammed(09 of16)
Open Image ModalYemeni former child-bride Nujud Mohammed Ali participates in a demonstration to support proposed legislation banning the marriage of girls under 17, outside the parliament in Sanaa on March 23, 2010. Ali was granted a divorce in 2008 at the age of eight after her unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage with a man twenty years her senior. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMED HUWAIS (Photo credit should read MOHAMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:AFP via Getty Images)
Bamiyan Shelter Cares For Battered Afghan Women(10 of16)
Open Image ModalBAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN - OCTOBER 8: Bas Gul, 17, resides at a women\'s shelter and safe house October 7, 2010 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She was a child bride, forced to marry at age 11, and ran away after five years of marriage to the boy, who was only five years old at the time of the marriage. Until women\'s shelters were started, something that was unknown here before 2003, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had no one to go to for protection. The problems many battered and abused women are confronting are deeply ingrained in a culture that has mainly been governed by tribal law. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, a more concrete idea of women\'s rights has begun to take hold, promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women\'s Affairs and a small community of women\'s advocates. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) (credit:Paula Bronstein via Getty Images)
This picture taken in Kabul on October 1(11 of16)
Open Image ModalThis picture taken in Kabul on October 12, 2011 shows an Afghan child at a shelter run by women for Afghan women. In the war-torn country, Afghan women often oppressed by poverty, family disputes, forced marriage or discrimination. Women\'s right in Afghanistan risk being forgotten as international troops withdraw and the government struggles for a peace deal 10 years after the Taliban were ousted, report by Oxfam and ActionAid said. AFP PHOTO / ADEK BERRY (Photo credit should read ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:ADEK BERRY via Getty Images)
YEMEN-SOCIETY-WOMEN-CHILDREN-MARRIAGE(12 of16)
Open Image ModalTO GO WITH AFP STORY BY SAMI AL-ANSI \nA picture taken on October 7, 2013 shows ten to fifteen-year-old Yemeni girls sitting at their school in the capital Sanaa. Child brides,\' or \'death brides\' as they are sometimes called, are quite common in poor tribal Yemen, where barely pubescent girls are forced into marriage, often to much older men. AFP PHOTO/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:MOHAMMED HUWAIS via Getty Images)
PAKISTAN-UNREST-WOMEN-MARRIAGES-CHILDREN(13 of16)
Open Image ModalTo go with \'Pakistan-unrest-women-marriages-Children-social, FEATURE\' by Khurram SHAHZAD\nIn this photograph taken on December 12, 2013 young Pakistani girl Saneeda, who escaped a forced marriage under a local custom of Swara, plays a local game in the Madyan valley of Swat, in the country\'s northwest. One sunny afternoon as she skipped home from school, Saneeda was accosted by her estranged father, who wanted to marry her to a man she\'d never met to settle a debt of \'honour\'. She was five years old. Offering young girls as brides in compensation to settle disputes persists in many areas of deeply conservative Pakistan. AFP PHOTO/Aamir QURESHI (Photo credit should read AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:AAMIR QURESHI via Getty Images)
YEMEN-GENDER-MARRIAGE-FILM(14 of16)
Open Image ModalYemeni women attend the showing of a film in Sanaa March 3, 2014 about \'child brides\', which are quite common in the poverty-striken and tribal country of Yemen, where barely pubescent adolescent girls are forced into marriage, often to older men. It is estimated that 14 % of girls in Yemen under the age of 15 are forced into early marriages and 52% of girls before they turn 18, and frequently to much older husbands according to rights organisations. AFP PHOTO/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:MOHAMMED HUWAIS via Getty Images)
YEMEN-GENDER-MARRIAGE-FILM(15 of16)
Open Image ModalA Yemeni woman attends the showing of a film in Sanaa March 3, 2014 about \'child brides\', which are quite common in the poverty-striken and tribal country of Yemen, where barely pubescent adolescent girls are forced into marriage, often to older men. It is estimated that 14 % of girls in Yemen under the age of 15 are forced into early marriages and 52% of girls before they turn 18, and frequently to much older husbands according to rights organisations. AFP PHOTO/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:MOHAMMED HUWAIS via Getty Images)
YEMEN-GENDER-MARRIAGE-FILM(16 of16)
Open Image ModalYemeni women attend the showing of a film in Sanaa March 3, 2014 about \'child brides\', which are quite common in the poverty-striken and tribal country of Yemen, where barely pubescent adolescent girls are forced into marriage, often to older men. It is estimated that 14 % of girls in Yemen under the age of 15 are forced into early marriages and 52% of girls before they turn 18, and frequently to much older husbands according to rights organisations. AFP PHOTO/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images) (credit:MOHAMMED HUWAIS via Getty Images)