It’s one thing to talk about child marriage; it’s quite another to have experienced it, escaped it, and gone on to become a first lady who uses her political platform to advance the empowerment of women and girls, including the abolishment of child marriage.
And Fatima Maada Bio, first lady of Sierra Leone, doesn’t mince words when it comes to the practice of marrying children off before the age of 18.
“It's very important for people to understand that early marriage, in my own theory, is a legalized form of rape,” she told Devex by phone after a speech at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York to mark International Women’s Day.