The Guardian: Child marriage in Nepal: what do you do when it’s by choice?
Ola Perczynska, program manager at Her Turn in Kathmandu, Nepal

“Despite child marriage being a human rights violation and the negative effects on girls and subsequently their children being well documented, in rural Nepal, an increasing number of these unions are considered love marriages. … When an adolescent couple decides to be together, marriage — often by eloping against their parents’ wishes — is their only choice. This practice is known to them as love marriage. …This new reality complicates many development assumptions that operate within a neat divide of regressive traditions versus progressive modern values. … The obvious goal is to increase adolescents’ awareness of disadvantages of child marriage, as many organizations already do. … [T]here is one channel that reaches almost all adolescents and has tremendous untapped potential: the national school curriculum…” (2/24).