TOW #11

Time to end Child Marriage by Jacqui Hunt CNN

The following article comes from CNN.com and is an in depth look at child marriage and its worldwide effect. Great psychological and physical strains placed on the child brides are exposed and investigated. A pattern of rape, force feeding, sex trafficking, and female genital mutilation are usually present before marriage for these child brides. A lifetime of abuse awaits child brides and as a global community we are not doing much to help. Countries such as Kenya, Morocco, and numerous Middle Eastern countries have no or no strict laws protecting children from child marriage while other countries like Egypt and Iran are lowering the marriage age. The opinions expressed in this article are those of Jacqui Hunt, London director of Equality Now, an international human rights organization, which aims to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world. Jacqui Hunt runs the London office of Equality Now.  A lawyer who trained and worked with international law firm, Linklaters, she started her professional career with Amnesty International, working in campaigning and research at the United Nations and in press and special projects.  She joined the Board of Equality Now in 1992, the year of its founding, and was later asked to start the London office, which she opened in 2004. Her article is obviously written in such a way as to convince her audience of the horrors behind child marriage and support causes like hers against it. Her audience being readers and patrons of CNN.com interested in world news and humanity news. Facts, reasoning, and a tone of responsibility allow Hunt to express the tragedy of child marriage. I enjoyed reading this piece as outlawing child marriage is one of my beliefs but I also appreciated how well it was written.