Girl power! Together against child marriage

When you're 12, 13, 15, it's a time when you want to be free to enjoy life and to go to school and learn important things for your future. But in some countries, it's also a time when the parents of some girls make them get married, stop school and start looking after a home, and even have babies. It's a real problem.

It nearly happened to Priyanka Bairwa in India. Her parents were short of money because of the Covid pandemic and marrying Priyanka to a man in their village would have helped their situation. But Priyanka, who was 15, said No. She persuaded her parents to let her stay in school. And she started to get other girls together.

They started a movement in their home state of Rajasthan. It's called Rajasthan Rising. And the girls have got politicians to listen to them and do something about the problem of child marriage.

You can see a full cartoon story about Priyanka in our latest WoW! News magazine and watch the video in this week's news capsule in our app.