Girls like Maria*, who at 13 was forced to become the sixth wife of a 70-year-old man. When she resisted, her father told her: “If you don’t go to join your husband, I will kill you.”  Another girl  told to The Washington Post, As she sat on the floor holding  her baby, she was panicked and tears filled her eyes. Her husband, nearly 20 years older, might kill her if he knew she was telling this story.Speaking anonymously, she said she was married at age 13 in the West African nation of Guinea because her parents feared she could harm her marriage prospects by having premarital sex. At the time, she said, she had not even developed breasts. “I was given to a man that I didn’t choose before my body was even ready to have sex. I couldn’t even move for a week afterward because I was swollen and bleeding,”Child marriage continues to be a serious issue in West and Central Africa.Leila, a survivor from Niger, explained that her uncle forced her to marry a man when she was only 14 because of a debt he could not repay. She says her husband beat her for refusing to have sex. It was only after her second pregnancy that she was able to escape and get a divorce so she could return to her studies.Case by case, country by country, Freedom United(freedomunited.org) works restlessly to  push lawmakers and politicians to protect children from this abhorrent practice.To read the entire article:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/as-africa-tackles-child-marriage-young-survivors-speak-out/2017/10/28/8698edc0-bbbf-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.e67600646eb3