“We ought to do everything in our power to ensure girls can become all they can be.” Desmond Tutu

In November, Desmond Tutu and Graça Machel took part in a Girls Not Brides conference discussing how to end child marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa. The event in South Africa brought together activists, campaigners and experts from across the continent.

"With or without legislation, we urge the Obama administration to make eliminating child marriage a foreign policy goal."

Writing in the Washington Post, Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu say we are not doing enough to fulfil our responsibility to protect young people from early marriage, and call on the United States government to make tackling child marriage a central focus of its international development agenda.

Dr Gro Brundtland and Graça Machel write in the Daily Beast that the practice of young girls becoming wives undermines equality and is a harmful “tradition” that must change.

Le mariage des enfants est une tradition qui entrave le développement sur plusieurs plans : l'éducation, la santé, la pauvreté et l'égalité. Pourtant, écrivent Gro Brundtland et Graça Machel, ce sujet est rarement évoqué par les instances décisionnaires. Tribune publiée sur Rue89.