‘We Must Protect Our Girls.’ Will Pakistan Finally Vote to End Child Marriage? – Time

Aisha was 14 years old when she married a man almost a decade older in a match arranged by her parents. “I was just thinking I would have the opportunity to wear good clothes and high heels,” Aisha, now 35, tells TIME.

Living in Pakistan’s northwest Mianwali district, the marriage festivities made her feel glamorous, even though she would no longer attend school and her elders had forged a marriage certificate saying she was 18. Soon after the marriage was solemnized, however, the abuse from her husband began: Age 16, Aisha’s pregnant body was hurled against a cupboard, leaving her covered in bruises. Her husband later burned his daughter’s hand on a heater and dropped icy water over his wife’s head as she slept. “He was torturing me in small, cruel ways,” says Aisha, who asked TIME not to use her real name for safety reasons. Her husband sought a second wife, but ordered Aisha to initiate a divorce first, fearing the risk to his reputation in the family.

Read more here: http://time.com/5047199/child-marriage-pakistan/