[ti:Families Marry Off Daughters to Ease Financial Problems from Pandemic] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]The man first saw Marie Kamara [00:04.52]as she ran with her friends past his house [00:08.92]in a small village in Sierra Leone. [00:12.56]Soon after, he asked the fifth-grade girl to marry him. [00:19.08]No, she told him, adding "I'm going to school now." [00:25.88]But the financial pressures caused by the coronavirus crisis [00:31.04]were greater than her wishes. [00:34.20]Marie's family needed money. [00:38.16]The man had a job and money. [00:41.12]He paid Marie's family 500,000 leones (about $50) to marry Marie. [00:52.68]"The day they paid for me was on a Friday, [00:55.92]and then I went to his house to stay," Marie said. [01:01.08]She added that at least now [01:03.64]she gets to eat something two times a day. [01:07.92]In recent years, many countries [01:10.56]had made progress against marriages of underage girls. [01:16.44]But COVID-19 has made much of that progress disappear. [01:22.64]The United Nations estimates that economic problems resulting from COVID-19 [01:29.64]will drive 13 million more girls to marry before the age of 18. [01:37.88]India's government put in place a nationwide lockdown in late March [01:43.48]to slow the spread of the coronavirus. [01:46.96]The restrictions caused millions of poor migrants to lose their jobs in cities. [01:54.00]Many returned to the villages they had left in search of work. [01:59.48]With schools closed and financial pressures rising, [02:03.40]marrying off young girls became a way for families to reduce costs. [02:11.00]The organization ChildLine India recorded 5,214 early marriages [02:20.00]in just four months of lockdown between March and June of this year. [02:26.40]The actual number is likely much higher, the organization notes. [02:32.88]In Bangladesh, child protection officials said they received a phone call back in June [02:39.52]warning that a child marriage was to take place within the hour. [02:45.48]After arriving to stop the marriage, [02:48.36]officials got the girl's family to agree to cancel the ceremony. [02:54.76]The officials left, and the family held the wedding anyway. [03:00.64]In Sierra Leone, the rate of marriage under 18 [03:05.00]had dropped from 56 percent in 2006 to 39 percent in 2017. [03:13.48]Then COVID-19 hit. [03:16.04]Schools closed in March. [03:18.56]After that, child marriages rose as village girls going to school [03:24.12]in nearby towns returned home to their parents. [03:28.76]Isata Dumbaya directs reproductive and maternal health [03:33.24]for Partners in Health Sierra Leone. [03:37.08]"When you marry, your father is no longer responsible for feeding you, [03:41.96]for paying your fees or doing anything else for you," she said. [03:46.76]"And if you come from a house with a lot of other children, [03:51.04]indeed, this is one less person (to feed)," she added. [03:57.00]Many of the girls' mothers got married as young girls too, said Dumbaya. [04:03.52]So the mothers see early marriage as normal. [04:07.60]"They do not see it as harming their children," Dumbaya said. [04:13.92]Sierra Leone's first lady, Fatima Maada Bio, understands the problem well. [04:21.60]Bio escaped to Britain as a teenager [04:24.92]after learning her father was planning to force her to marry. [04:29.96]She has been working to end child marriage [04:32.64]with her "Hands Off Our Girls" campaign [04:36.52]since her husband took office in 2018. [04:41.20]"Early marriage in all forms is legalized rape," [04:45.16]she recently told The Associated Press. [04:48.76]Because of COVID-19 restrictions, [04:52.40]the campaign has had to reduce many of its outreach efforts. [04:57.60]This means fewer face-to-face meetings with Sierra Leone's traditional leaders, [05:04.00]some of whom govern areas of the country [05:07.56]so distant they lack an FM radio signal. [05:12.64]Many rural areas in Sierra Leone do not have secondary schools. [05:17.92]So, teenage girls often move to distant towns to continue their education. [05:24.68]They usually live with a relative. [05:28.64]Teenager Mariama Conteh left her village this year [05:33.64]to live with an aunt and attend school. [05:37.84]Soon after, a 28-year-old man said he wanted to marry her. [05:44.04]It took a month for Mariama to agree. [05:47.52]Her aunt had threatened her, saying if she refused the man, [05:51.96]she would have to go home. [05:54.24]There, her father was struggling to feed two wives and 10 other children. [06:01.52]She cries when she thinks of the education she lost. [06:06.68]"It is what it is," said Mariama, [06:10.40]who is now seven months pregnant. [06:13.16]"It has happened." [06:15.00]I'm Ashley Thompson. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM