Why did the African girl feel pressured to marry?”
Last year, after the hard rains had gone from these highlands and it was time to pull the sweet potatoes from the red earth, young men from nearby villages began coming around to ask after the slender seventh-grader with the almond eyes and the shy smile. Aine Armando Wasso was determined to ignore the inquiries, but they got her mother’s attention. “Enough school,” she told 15-year-old Aine one day after coming in from the family’s small farm. “It’s time for you to get married.” That night, Aine lay in their hut on a dank foam mattress, stared up at the thatched ceiling and cried for hours. Then she reached the hardest decision of her young life: She would refuse marriage and demand to stay in school. As Africa experiences one of the greatest population explosions ever recorded, millions of girls are forced into leaving the classroom and marrying early, often to ease the financial strains on their large families. By jump-starting their own child-bearing years, experts say, these young
