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Child marriage

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06 September 2024

Community protective mothers guiding girls to a better path.

They look like mother and daughter sitting together, chatting away. It's like that. Kadidiatou Daou, 50, is the "protective mother" of Mariam Bakayoko, 16, a pupil in Year 9. They both live in the same street in Niamakoro, a district in the Malian capital, Bamako. Almost every day, usually after school, Mariam, ...

Girls belong in school

Hawa's uncles arranged her marriage to a man from their village. He is a heavy machinery operator on construction sites in the regional capital of Kayes. She was 16 years old when the traditional marriage ceremony took place, a few weeks before the DEF exams, the diploma that marks the end of nine years of basic e...

Restoring the physical and emotional integrity of Aichata and thousands of survivors

Aichata* is 20 years old and has two children. She was married at 14. She also underwent genital mutilation at the age of seven, in her village in the cercle of Kati, some twenty kilometers from Bamako, the capital of Mali. "One day, my grandmother fetched me from my parents' house. The next day, I found myself ...

06 February 2024

In Mali, religious leaders are committed against gender-based violence.

Abdoulaye CISSÉ, Imam, raises awareness among the faithful about gender, the role of men and women in the household, tolerance in the family and in the community. Néguela, Koulikoro Region June 2023, Mali. Abdoulaye CISSÉ, Imam, raises awareness among the faithful about gender, the role of men and women in the household, tolerance in the family…

06 February 2024

In Koulikoro, Aminata, a teenage activist against child marriage.

Koulikoro, Mali - With a determined step, Aminata Fofana walks into the courtyard and sits down on a chair. The teenager unlocks her phone with a thumb swipe on the screen and starts a conversation with her new friends from the adolescent girls' group. This small community allows young girls who were married off e...

19 October 2023

YOUNG AND COMMITTED TO GIRLS WELL-BEING IN MALI.

In April 2023, 50 young girls and boys from southern Mali were trained by UNICEF in advocacy techniques. During the training, the young people learned about the root causes of child marriage and Female Genital Mutilation, and how to advocate effectively to put an end to these harmful practices. Among these young ...

22 January 2020

“Go see my father: they intend to give me in marriage”

15-year-old Tenin* still remembers the day, two years earlier, when she raised her hand in class. In a soft clear voice, she told her teacher and her classmates: “Go see my father: they intend to give me in marriage.” In a country where nearly half of the girls are married before their eighteenth birthday, it was ...

4 Key Results for Children

UNICEF in Mali’s 4 Key Results for Children, UNICEF’s West and Central Africa Regional Office has identified eight Key Results for Children (KRC) that will accelerate progress towards the realization of the rights of the child in the region. From these, UNICEF has selected four priority KRCs for Mali: increasing c...

28 November 2018

Where Words Heal

''Once, I cut a girl and two days later, she died. That marked me forever'” Diba Kanté’s voice stretches across the room, clear, continuous and low. She holds out one of the small knives she had used, delicately held, at a distance, between two reluctant fingers. “Once, I cut a girl and two days later, she died. T...