Nearly two years ago, Love Justice staff came together to pray and fast for a young girl forced to marry against her will.
One of our staff members at the time—we’ll call him Arun*—had cared for the young girl as if she were his own daughter. She lived with Arun, his wife, and their children, attending school in the city and not having to worry about basic daily needs. Her family had asked Arun for help because they wanted a better life for her. They were poor and there weren’t many opportunities available to her in their village.
That girl—we’ll call her Riya*—grew into a beautiful, intelligent young woman. During a visit home to her village one day, a young man from a wealthy and powerful family saw her and wanted her for his wife.
To refuse would have been catastrophic for her family both socially and economically.
Riya fell ill with severe stomach pain in the days leading up to the wedding. All her education and her parents’ efforts to provide better opportunities than they’d had seemed to be coming to an end. We prayed daily as an organization for weeks, but still the wedding day came.
The numbers
This story is unfortunately a common one, affecting millions of people around the world.
Forced marriage is defined by the element of force, fraud, or coercion. When it also involves an element of exploitation, it is a type of human trafficking. Child marriage is considered forced marriage according to international human rights law because a child is not able to fully consent.
When you hear the data that 50 million people are enslaved in human trafficking, you might think of labor or sex trafficking—but nearly half of that number are trapped in exploitative forced marriages.
Here is some of the data reported by the Global Slavery Index (GSI):
One study found that over 300,000 minors were legally married in the U.S. between 2000–2021, mostly girls married to older men. Although the vast majority of that number were 16 and 17 year olds, nearly 10,000 were under the age of 16—the youngest only 10 years old.
Though some states amended their laws after this study came out, as of September 2025, four states still have no minimum age limit to marry—California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Mississippi.
Why and how it happens
In some cases, forced marriage is simply a loophole to make legal what would have otherwise been a sex crime. If a rapist marries his victim, many states in the U.S. allow the charges against him to be dropped.
In other cases, it is a crime deeply rooted in harmful cultural norms, gender bias, and extreme poverty. A strategic marriage in some countries can relieve economic burdens or preserve family honor.
While deception is a common tactic in labor and sex trafficking, coercion is more common in these family settings. Parents may use emotional manipulation or threaten to disown their child if they do not obey.
In Riya’s case, the coercion came from the groom’s family. Her parents didn’t want her to marry, but the young man’s family threatened to ruin them if they did not comply.
Solutions
As with other large-scale global injustices, solving forced marriage will require multidimensional responses.
The first step is for governments around the globe to create better laws. According to the GSI cited above, most countries have not fully outlawed forced marriage in their legislation. Laws around gender discrimination need to be amended, and there need to be more laws protecting women’s rights to own or inherit property.
Improving education and opportunities can also help in cases where poverty is the main instigator.
Programs aimed at changing harmful cultural practices and gender discrimination also show promising success rates. In Somalia and Senegal, community-led programs aimed at empowering women and girls to become leaders saw a subsequent decline in forced marriages within that community.
Love Justice’s strategy of transit monitoring can also stop forced marriages in some cases, especially when the victim is traveling for the marriage. Love Justice has 20 short-term shelters for cases where home is not a safe place for the victim to return.
Between 2017 and 2025, Love Justice intercepted over 3,500 people who were on their way to get married. (Chart below shows the age range of those people). Of those cases, 75% involved minors, with the overwhelming majority being female and located in South Asia. Our data is evolving as we develop new tools, but these numbers indicate that our work does have an impact on forced marriage.
Take action
Riya’s story did not end happily. Without going into too much detail, the reports we heard from Arun were not good. Her new husband did not seem very gentle, and her new life appeared very restricted overall.
It doesn’t have to be that way for others.
Spread awareness by sharing this article with someone, write a letter to your government requesting better laws, or give at the button below to protect someone else from being trafficked.
*All data and statistics current at the date and time of publishing. Names changed and specific locations excluded for privacy and security purposes. Images are representative.