The bravery of the girls willing to share their faces and stories, alongside profound images, has mobilized a movement. Statistics show that each girl who recovers or is prevented from child marriage will then prevent her own children from marrying early – a ripple effect that continues well beyond this generation. Since then, the organization has impacted thousands of girls directly through its programs and services. On October 11, 2012, the first International Day of the Girl Child, TYTW was officially launched, in conjunction with an exhibit at the United Nations. The realization that child marriage was still so prevalent worldwide was shocking and inspired me to refocus my life on documenting and campaigning against the practice. One girl every two seconds is forced into marriage globally, each day. The horror of learning their stories is really where the Too Young to Wed (TYTW) project began. They told me they’d been married at 9, 10, 11-and in their misery they had preferred death over the lives they were living. There, I discovered a disturbing pattern among burn ward patients: most had been forced into marriage as children. In 2003, I traveled to Herat, where I was working on a story about girls and women who set themselves on fire. Stephanie Sinclair: Too Young to Wed began in Afghanistan. PhotoShelter: What’s the story behind Too Young To Wed? How did your work come about? Caption: An 11-year-old girl in Ghor Province, Afghanistan sits beside her fiance, estimated to be in his 40s, at their engagement ceremony shortly before the couple’s marriage in 2005. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.Ĭover image by Stephanie Sinclair. I spoke with Stephanie recently to find out more about her work with Too Young To Wed and to learn more about the role of photography in their organization, how PhotoShelter helps their efforts and more. It is something truly extraordinary to witness,” Stephanie says.
“We are excited to be part of the process, as these brave young girls become advocates themselves calling for world leaders to take action. But on a micro level, the organization has empowered survivors and their communities through photo workshops and leadership development to help girls reclaim their narratives. On the macro level, TYTW has educated billions of people about the consequences of child marriage through its extensive media coverage. Too Young To Wed seeks to push the power of photography and visual storytelling into making such actionable change. It inspires actions and, though photos can certainly be manipulated, tells the truth in ways words may not,” says Stephanie Sinclair, photojournalist and the photographer behind Too Young To Wed (TYTW), a nonprofit devoted to empowering girls and ending child marriage globally.īut how can truth-telling through photography tangibly shape the lives of individuals? How is photography making a visible difference in global communities? Oftentimes, once a photo is published, we don’t know the impact of it outside of initial knee-jerk reactions. “Photography is and has always been an extraordinary tool to help move people. We’re all familiar with powerful photojournalism.
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