Child Bride

i am five
i am woken under cover of night
to marry a boy not much older than I
i don't know what marriage is
but I sure got a pretty new dress for the occasion



i like pink
it is my favorite color
i was six when I married my husband of twenty-five
i was scared of the things he did to me
but a wife has her duties
he is my family now

i am fourteen
i just had my second child
i do not feel well
but I must put how I feel on the side
because no one cares
and no one will take care of my children but me
i wish i had been born another

i am sixteen
vulnerable and afraid
leaving the only family I've ever known
for a new one that does not see me as their own
i am now their slave



i can no longer bear this life
i am slave, i am whore, i am Nothing
i burned myself today
like countless before me
Death, our only escape
yet it was not my time
i survived

i am thirteen
i wed four days ago
today I lay cold on a hospital gurney
because my husband claimed his rights to me
i bled to death
i am free

i am ten
my husband is thirty
and despite the promise he would wait
as husband, he claimed his rights
but i have rights as well
more than he
for i'm a child
my name is Nujood Ali
and i will be the pebble that will ripple the water


And she divorced him and became the voice for those that had none.

Pictures and story from this month's National Geographic story on child brides. An article well-worth reading.