Child brides stand with their husbands outside their mountain home in Hajjah
Photographer: Stephanie Sinclair
Date: c. 2010
Location: Hajjah, Yemen
Stephanie Sinclair's multi-year project 'Too Young to Wed' documented child marriage practices in Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, India, and Nepal. Her photographs, several published in National Geographic, showed young girls dressed as brides alongside adult husbands, bringing global attention to a practice that denies millions of girls access to education and exposes them to health risks from early pregnancy. The Yemen images — showing girls in the Hajjah governorate — are among the most widely published. Sinclair won the World Press Photo award and the UNICEF Photo of the Year for her work. Her images contributed to international advocacy efforts around child marriage. UNICEF estimates that approximately 650 million women alive today were married before age 18.
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