Child brides

Mother sold 12-year-old to 70-year-old man

Muneera Begum, now aged 19, lives in Hyderabad, India. She says she was just 12 years old when her parents sold her into a forced marriage with a man from Oman. He was aged 70.

She calls the so-called wedding night "torture."

"I wasn't educated and I couldn't understand anything that was going on," she said. I had a childishness in me."

She says that for two months, he kept her locked in a room, using her repeatedly for sex.

"If he had to go anywhere he would lock me from the inside, come back later and then again that torture would start," she said.

Girl under 15 married every seven seconds, says Save the Children

The study says girls as young as 10 are forced to marry much older men in countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, India and Somalia.

Save the Children says early marriage can trigger a cycle of disadvantage across every part of a girl's life.

Conflict, poverty and humanitarian crises are seen as major factors that leave girls exposed to child marriage.