Too Young to Wed

Today would have been Jean-François Leroy’s 70th birthday.

While he passed away in August, Jean-François was TYTW Founder Stephanie Sinclair’s friend for 22 years, one of the earliest and fiercest champions of her work on child marriage, and a member of Too Young to Wed’s Advisory Board from the very beginning of the organization.

Stephanie remembers that he always called her on her birthday, so it felt right to mark his by celebrating the way he showed up to support girls over so many years.

They met in 2004, when he showed Stephanie’s photographs of women and girls who had self-immolated in Afghanistan at the Visa pour l’Image Photojournalism Festival. The work was incredibly difficult to look at. Jean-François believed that was precisely why people needed to see it.

And he kept showing it.

For more than two decades, he used what he had—his platform, his relationships, his influence, his judgment and, often, his stubbornness—to help make sure girls and their stories were seen.
That has always meant a great deal to us.

The work to end child marriage and violence against girls cannot belong only to women and girls. We need men who are willing to stand alongside them and use whatever influence, access or skills they have to help move the work forward.

Jean-François did that.

Stephanie often describes social change as a wheel, with all of us as different spokes. None of us can do everything. But each of us can bring something: journalism, law, education, philanthropy, policy, art, business, organizing, relationships, resources—or simply the willingness to open a door.

When enough people use what they have, in the way they can, change becomes possible.

Jean-François was stubborn, demanding, irreverent, incredibly funny and, underneath all of that, an enormous softie.

When he believed something mattered, he didn’t just say so. He did something about it.

And he believed these girls mattered.

Happy birthday, Jean-François. We miss you, and we are grateful for everything you did to help make life better for at-risk girls around the world.

During , Too Young to Wed was proud to witness growing global momentum on efforts to protect the rights, safety, education, and futures of girls and women across the globe, particularly those impacted by conflict, displacement, poverty, climate crises, and harmful social norms.

From Ambassador Verveer’s powerful remarks on women’s rights to the High-Level Side Event on ending child marriage, governments, international organizations, and civil society came together to stress that the rights and dignity of girls everywhere must be protected.

We were honored to have our Founder and CEO Stephanie Sinclair, our Board Member Rachel Vogelstein, and our colleague Fatima Airan attend, moderate, and speak at these sessions.

A historic milestone was also reached: November 27 has been established as the International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage. We are grateful to , , and the governments of Canada and Zambia for championing this resolution.
With 12 million girls married before the age of 18 every year, the global commitment to ending child marriage has never felt more urgent. We must move from awareness to sustained action, invest in girls, and match every commitment with resources and accountability.

For Too Young to Wed, this moment is deeply personal. Ending child marriage has been our mission from the beginning.

In more than half of US states, a child can still be married before she is old enough to vote, sign a lease or finish high school.

That is starting to change. Yesterday, California signed a law to end child marriage, becoming the 18th state to do so. And this summer, members of Congress reintroduced the Child Marriage Prevention Act, the first federal legislation to tackle child marriage in the United States.

This year, Too Young to Wed joined Tahirih Justice Center and other organizations in supporting the bill. Informed by survivor advocates, it would encourage states to set 18 as the minimum age to marry, ban child marriage on federal property such as military bases, and close loopholes in marriage-based immigration that can be used to exploit children.

In every country where we work, including here in the United States, we see the same pattern. Child marriage is rarely the first thing that goes wrong in a girl’s life. It often follows a school she can no longer attend, a family under financial strain, a home that isn’t safe, or the absence of an adult she can trust. Once it happens, it narrows everything that comes after: her education, her income, her health and her safety. So we focus on what comes first: keeping her in school, helping her family through hard seasons, and making sure she has adults she can trust. Alongside that work, we push for the systems meant to protect girls to do exactly that, starting with laws that make clear a child is too young to wed.

Passing this bill would send a clear message that the United States condemns child marriage wherever it happens, at home and abroad.

Tell your members of Congress to support the Child Marriage Prevention Act. Take action through the link in our bio (http://bio.tahirih.org/cmpa)

Trafficking doesn’t always look the way we imagine. In some circumstances, forced marriage can also be a form of trafficking, including when girls are subjected to sexual exploitation, servitude or forced labor.
But the conditions that put a girl at risk often begin much earlier.

She leaves school. Her family loses income. Conflict or displacement separates her from people she trusts. She becomes isolated. Systems meant to protect her fail. Her choices begin to narrow.

These aren’t separate problems in a girl’s life. They compound one another.

At Too Young to Wed, that is why our work doesn’t begin and end with preventing a marriage. We work alongside girls and communities to strengthen the things that expand a girl’s choices over time: education, safety, trusted relationships, skills, access to resources and opportunities to shape her own future.

Because protecting girls from exploitation matters. So does building a world in which girls have more power, more choices and more ways to determine what happens next in their own lives.

According to UNODC’s latest global report, women and girls account for 61% of detected trafficking victims globally, and children account for 38%.
Your support helps TYTW work alongside girls before their choices disappear—and invest in the conditions that allow those choices to grow.
Give through the link in our bio.

Four years ago, the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini helped ignite the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.

Among its most powerful voices were adolescent girls.

Schoolgirls walked out of classrooms, protested in school courtyards and took to the streets. Women and girls stood at the forefront of a movement demanding the right to live with freedom and dignity, and to determine the course of their own lives.
They did so at extraordinary cost. Women and girls were arrested, beaten and imprisoned. Some lost their lives. Children were among the hundreds of people killed during the crackdown on the 2022 uprising.

And what began in Iran came to mean something far beyond its borders.

Woman. Life. Freedom. became a rallying cry for women and girls confronting systemic oppression—the right to learn, to speak, to move freely, to participate in public life and to make decisions about their own bodies and futures.

That solidarity has been especially meaningful between Iranian and Afghan women and girls, who have stood alongside one another even as they confront different realities.

For Too Young to Wed, this is close to home. Our work is deeply rooted in Afghanistan, many within our community have deep ties to Iran, and we have seen again and again that girls are not simply people to be protected. They are agents of change—in their own lives, their communities and sometimes far beyond them.

Four years later, we remember Jina Mahsa Amini and the women and girls who risked—and in some cases lost—their lives demanding the freedom to determine their own futures.

Woman. Life. Freedom.

“The flap of a butterfly’s wing can change the weather hundreds of miles away.”

Gloria Steinem often returned to this idea: that change can begin with something small and travel farther than we may ever know.
For more than six decades, she wrote, organized and spoke out for women’s equality. She challenged the idea that women should simply fit into the world as it was.

“I wasn’t going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life,” she once said.

Her words feel especially close to our work at Too Young to Wed. Butterfly is the name of our programs and a symbol of girls finding their voices, making their own choices and shaping their own futures. Like the flap of a butterfly’s wing, change that begins with one girl can travel far beyond her. Gloria believed that “everything we do counts.” Her life certainly did.

**We work so the wings she set in motion keep changing the weather.**

Photo: Annie Leibovitz, via [GloriaSteinem.com](http://GloriaSteinem.com)

Back to school isn’t always a classroom. Sometimes it’s a keyboard, for the first time, at any age, and a reason to stay long enough to finish. Share the campaign. Support a girl today.

Nearly 1 in 4 young women in India marry before 18. About a third of the world’s child brides live in India. And even for girls who stay enrolled, only about half complete upper secondary school nationally.

Getting a girl into school is only half the job. Keeping her there long enough to finish is the other half.

In Rajasthan, female literacy in some communities remains below 10 percent. This year, TYTW’s program reached 368 girls directly. Fifty gained digital literacy and computer skills for the first time. The program was budgeted for six months. The community asked us to stay for ten, and we did.

Images by Karma Bhutia (Student of life).