{"id":76226,"date":"2026-02-04T16:45:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T07:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/feb\/04\/child-marriage-india-girl-wedding-family-vulnerability-rights"},"modified":"2026-02-04T16:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T07:45:36","slug":"women-behind-the-lens-i-met-14-year-old-arti-a-day-before-her-wedding-her-suicide-six-years-later-hit-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76226","title":{"rendered":"Women behind the lens: \u2018I met 14-year-old Arti a day before her wedding. Her suicide six years later hit home\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being illegal, child marriage is still common in much of India. Saumya Khandelwal, a photojournalist, followed one girl\u2019s tragic story<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, I came across a pamphlet from an organisation working on child marriage in the north-eastern India-Nepal border region of Shravasti. Statistics showed that 25% of girls in Shravasti, in Uttar Pradesh, were married by the time they reached 19. The figures were appalling, not only because of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2021\/jul\/13\/the-indian-girls-movement-fighting-child-marriage\">how rampant child marriage was in the region<\/a>, but also because the practice is illegal in India.<\/p>\n<p>I decided to visit Shravasti, which is less than 90 miles from my home town. My first impression was that in a place with high rates of migration among men, young women lived with their in-laws and managed their households while their children cried and played in their arms. After that first visit it became a stop for me every time I went home.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/feb\/04\/child-marriage-india-girl-wedding-family-vulnerability-rights\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being illegal, child marriage is still common in much of India. Saumya Khandelwal, a photojournalist, followed one girl\u2019s tragic storyIn 2013, I came across a pamphlet from an organisation working on child marriage in the north-eastern India-Ne&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,1671,59,53,62,92,79,61,281,617,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-design","category-child-marriage","category-global-development","category-human-rights","category-india","category-photography","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-women","category-womens-rights-and-gender-equality","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76227,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76226\/revisions\/76227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}