UNICEF Germany’s ‘Photo of the Year’ draws attention to issue of child brides
UNICEF Germany’s ‘Photo of the Year’ of a 40 year old groom with a child bride in Afghanistan raises global concerns about child marriages, widely condemned for their sexual abuse and violation of human rights. The bride in the photograph has just turned 11.
New York: US photographer Stephanie Sinclair is the winner of this year’s ‘Photo of the Year’ competition presented by the German National Committee for UNICEF.
Ms. Sinclair’s photo shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan. The groom, Mohammed, is 40 years old and the bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she has just turned 11.
- UNICEF photo of the year / Photo credit: Stephanie Sinclair
The image “raises awareness about a worldwide problem,” UNICEF patroness Eva Luise Köhler said at the award ceremony in Berlin. “Millions of girls are married while they are still under-age. Most of theses child brides are forever denied a self-determined life.”
Worldwide, some 60 million young women were married before they came of age, half of them in South Asia.
‘I do not know this man’
Presenting the award for the eighth time this year, UNICEF Germany holds the competition to honour photographs of high artistic and photojournalistic quality that capture the living conditions of children around the world. The competition is supported by the magazine GEO Germany and Citibank Germany.
The winning image is one of a series of photos about child marriages taken by Ms. Sinclair between 2005 and 2007 in Afghanistan, Nepal and Ethiopia.
UNICEF estimates that about half of Afghan women are married before they turn 18. In Afghanistan, most parts of South Asia, Southern Africa and other regions, marriage is often seen as a business transaction that has nothing to do with personal desires. In this process, the bride is the article of trade – the younger she is, the higher the bride price.
“What are you feeling today?” Ms. Sinclair recalled asking Ghulam with regard to her engagement. “Nothing,” the bewildered girl answered. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”
