This post is sponsored by CARE.org but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.
With today being Father’s Day, I always reflect on the very first time being a parent, and it was at a extremely young age. After reading stories on Care.org, there was one particular story that drew my attention, and it was little boys becoming grooms. This is a huge problem throughout the world today; I mean we’ve always heard about the unfortunate situations where adolescent ladies being forced to become wives. Now there are junior men being forced into marriage at shockingly young ages, child grooms of Nepal are working to save the next generation from the plight they have suffered. Some may think, well this isn’t happening in my country or my part of the world why should I care, and the reason is it’s the right thing to do and who wants to see kids suffer. Consider this: 12% of males under the age of 14 in the Kapilbastu district of Nepal are forced into early marriages. This is also true for 26% of girls. That’s an astounding number and to put that into context think about this, that’s roughly 1 out of eight males who hasn’t reached high school and even worse, that’s basically 1 out of four girls………huge problem!!!
Boys forced to marry as young as 7 years old in Nepal endure psychological trauma, have children early and often drop out of school to support their new families, according to a report from the poverty-fighting group CARE. Titled “Dads Too Soon: The Child Grooms of Nepal,” the report sheds new light on an issue often seen through the eyes of girls, who suffer the most at the hands of child marriage. Through stories and statistics, the multimedia report details the forces pushing both girls and boys into early marriages in parts of western Nepal. The analysis comes amid fears that April’s deadly earthquake, which devastated the capital Kathmandu and surrounding areas, will further isolate rural communities and increase child marriage rates. But it offers hope, too. Through CARE’s Tipping Point program, former child grooms are emerging as key allies in the movement to strike at the roots of child marriage in Nepal.
How Can You Help
• Watch CARE’s report.
• Tell others about it and perhaps start a discussion in your social and professional circles about what you, as a community, can do to help in some small way.
• Sign the petition to congress.
• Share the story about child grooms and child marriage with your social media followers. Use the hashtag #ChildGrooms
• Follow the Story on Social Media: Facebook, Google+, YouTube.
Tell me what you think about this story? Is this something you would like to become involved with seeing there are kids being forced to be married at such an early age? Leave a comment in the section below and let me know what you think about this bad situation.
