SCANDAL OF THE ILLEGAL CHILD
SCHOOLGIRL Alima Ka woke to hear voices singing and her parents by her bed, telling her they had bought her a dress.
A new frock... a luxury unheard of for teenage girls in rural Senegal.
But her joy turned to shock and horror when she saw the dress was a bridal gown and the singing came from friends and family there for wedding.
Alima, just 14, had no idea her father had sold her to be married to a cousin twice her age.
At a stroke, her dreams of becoming a chef and owning a restaurant were over. Instead, she would be forced to leave home, leave school – and, very soon, become a mother.
Her tale was shocking to hear. Yet it was one that became horrifyingly familiar as we met more and more teenagers like Alima. We were told of:
Violence in marriage, where a child bride was beaten into sex.
A 12-year-old forced to marry a man aged over 60.
The agony of teenagers giving birth before their bodies are fully ready.
Exhausted young mums toiling the land to scrape a living for families.
Alima and the girls we met are among millions forced into early marriages across the world each year – a mindblowing 28 per minute.
I asked my dad not to arrange a marriage, I don’t love my husband... life won’t get better ALIMA KA
LONELY
Some 42,000 of them are in Senegal, including 11,000 illegally married before the age of 15.
The day after her wedding, Alima was sent to a distant village to cook and clean for her husband’s family.
She said: “At night, I often cry for my mother. I miss my family so much. I am used to my husband now, but I don’t love him.
“I asked my dad not to have me married but it was all arranged. My sisters were married even younger.
“It is a tradition in our village. You don’t have to be told before you get married. Getting married has killed all of my dreams. My work is very painful and I am lonely and hungry.”
We met Alima in rural Kolda when we travelled to Senegal with Save the Children ahead of a summit – starting tomorrow – which aims to address the problem of child marriage in Africa.
In the poorest regions of the country, more than two-thirds of girls will have wed before they are 18.
A year on from her wedding, Alima’s days have changed beyond recognition. She rises at 6am, cooks three meals for 11 members of her husband’s family and tends to goats and sheep. Some days, she spends 10 hours painstakingly searching for clean water.
When we talk about school, the tears flow.
She said: “I really want to go back to school. I was about to get an internship when I was told I needed to get