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#strengthtosayno is a campaign that has sparked global outcry across social media for states/governments to end forced marriage, inspired by the self-emancipation of Indian woman Rekka Kalindi.
Out of the remote village of Bengal, India, Kalindi refused marriage at the age of 11 and, according to the Daily Mail, was allegedly beaten and starved by her mother for doing so.
Now, aged 18, she has published her own memoir, Strength To Say No, detailing how Kalindi goes from village to village telling her story of oppression and adversaries that many young girls and women.
In many religions, child marriages were allowed ONLY if the child has given their consent WHOLEHEARTEDLY and WITHOUT the coercion or manipulation of parents.
But today, this is not the case.
Many girls under the tender age of 15 around the world, and particularly India, are being forced into marriage by their parents for either social pressures or economic sustainability.
Thousands have taken to social media showing their support:
Across the continent of Africa where marriages are arranged for financial sustainability, many parents desperately try to gain an income by selling their daughters.
Many of these children are kicked out of their homes, and cut off from their families if they refuse to submit to marriage – or threatened with possibly condemning their younger siblings to be married off in their place.
According to Jeanne Smoot, from Tahirih Justice Centre, what arranged marriages really mean for these young girls is a lifetime of rape from a husband she did not choose.
Girls as young as 12, and sometimes younger, are being taken out school, forced into marriage and by the age of 13 would have had their first child with most dying during child birth due to complications presented in early puberty.
No girl should be forced into marriage. Least of all by her parents who are meant to be one’s greatest source of support and protection.
It is the right of every single person to make decisions about their future and who they wish to be with. This is the reason why states, such as the UK, has made arranged marriages illegal.
To force any child into a marriage is wrong and, quite frankly, is a little more than slavery as they’re bound to a life of servitude and, fundamentally, it is encaging their heart in a place it does not wish to be.
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