00:00Ikra was just 13 when she was married off to her cousin.
00:18Now 17, she's already a mother of four.
00:22Instead of going to school, she spends her days cooking, cleaning and caring for her children.
00:27According to the UN, one in six young girls in Pakistan are married in childhood.
00:33The country is now home to nearly 19 million child brides.
00:37Ikra is now expecting another child.
00:59She's doing so while living in a makeshift slum with no sewage, clean water or access to basic health care.
01:06She was never educated about childbirth risks.
01:09Over 1.9 million children are born in Pakistan each year to adolescent girls age 15 to 19.
01:15These births have higher rates of maternal and infant complications.
01:19Child brides are twice as likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth compared to women in their 20s.
01:24Driven by poverty, tradition and climate shocks, girls like Ikra are promised into marriage, sometimes with cousins, before they are even born.
01:33My mother was 13, 14 years old.
01:36My mother was 15, 16, 17 years old.
01:39So we didn't understand how much marriage is.
01:42We didn't keep the marriage in the house.
01:46It's sad that we don't keep the marriage in the house.
01:48If it's sad, we can give the money to the girl and take the marriage in the house.
01:51We say that many people take the money to the marriage in the house.
01:53Pakistan's legal marriage age is 16, but the law is poorly enforced, with 12% of girls married before they turn 15 years old.
02:02In many communities, financial and cultural pressures play a key role in continuing child marriage.
02:09Parents, often living in poverty, view early marriage as a way of relieving financial burdens through securing a dowry.
02:15Boys in Pakistan can also be affected by child marriage.
02:32Raja was married as a teenager with no education or job skills.
02:36He is trapped in a cycle of poverty and now collects scrap to survive.
02:40He is barely able to feed his children or support his pregnant wife.
02:44Child marriages can also lead to malnourished households, as the parents are often uneducated and locked in a cycle of poverty.
02:57Children born in these unions often face higher risk of exploitation, including child labour.
03:03We don't understand how much time we have to deal with.
03:09We think that we are our children and parents.
03:12Who is our children?
03:13We can't eat good food for women, sir.
03:16We can't eat good food for women.
03:18We can't eat good food for children.
03:19This is my life, sir.
03:20It's my life.
03:21I see my children, where are we, where are we, where are we, where are we.
03:24I don't have a house, no other house.
03:27It's my family.
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