Ethiopian Child Bride Opens Up , Forced Into Marriage At 10, Pregnant At 13 And Widowed by 14,Now Leaves In London.

Alemtsahye Gebrekidan was 10 when her childhood came to an abrupt end. 'I was playing outside and my mum called me inside to the house,' she remembers of the day her world changed forever.
'She said "you're going to marry". I was surprised and I cried but I didn't say anything to them [her parents].' Her wedding, to a boy of 16, took place just two months later.
Shocking though it might seem, her experience is by no means unique. According to World Health Organisation figures, 14.2 million girls under the age of 15 are forced into marriage.

'I was in school,' she remembers, 'although I stopped the school when I was married. I do have happy memories of childhood - it was just eat and play.'
All that ended when it was decided she would marry a boy, who until the day of their wedding, she had never met.
'I didn't know him,' she says. 'I was OK when I saw him - he was a child like me. He was upset as well, the same like me... he was 16 years old.'
As Alemtsahye's story reveals, girls aren't the only victims of forced marriages, although as Jacqui Hunt, London Director of campaigning charity Equality Now makes clear, their experience is often far more traumatic.
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