The humanitarian organization UNICEF has uploaded on their official Facebook page a video that had the world in a storm, sharing it to their 5.9 million-strong following. “This looks like a storybook wedding,” says the video’s caption. “Except for one thing…”
At first glance this video starts out like any other video of a couple’s big day. The wedding venue being set up for the day head, the bride and bridegroom being dolled up—all this backdropped in a delicate piano arrangement, suffusing every shot with an illusion of sentimentality.
The camera pans over the white wedding cake, and shows a shot of the bride fitting into her white gown.
Then the bride’s mum hugs her daughter for the last time before the ceremony.
Guests arrive at the venue, and soon the bride, holding a bouquet of flowers, walks down the aisle and toward the altar while emotional friends and family look on.
The couple exchange vows, and then rings, and it was only toward the end of the video does the view get the glimpse that the bride is just a girl, and that the groom is significantly older than her.
“15 million girls will be married this year,” the video ends with this message. “Before their 18th birthday.
Unfortunately this is the harsh reality many girls all over the world face every year. Reasons for arranged marriages between underage girls and older men vary, but most of them operate behind the idea that the girls are better off married, and that they will have a prosperous life ahead.
Meanwhile other families sell off their daughters in exchange for money. Child brides are usually physically and sexually assaulted by their husbands.
By posting the video, UNICEF aims to raise an awareness, and in a way for the world at large to be able to help these unfortunate girls.
The video has more than 100 thousand likes, and has been shared almost 300 thousand times.
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