• A nine-months pregnant Niruta, 14, arrives at her wedding ceremony in Kagati village Nepal on Jan. 23, 2007, which was the auspicious day of Vasant Panchami, a Hindu holiday celebrating the coming of spring. Niruta moved in with the family of Durga, 16, the year before and was pregnant three months later. The 2015 earthquakes devastated Nepal and left girls and women in an increasingly vulnerable position, leading experts to believe child marriage rates will increase over the coming years.
  • Durga, 16, applies sindoor, or vermillion powder, to his young bride Niruta’s part during their wedding ceremony in Kagati village Nepal on Jan. 23, 2007, which was the auspicious day of Vasant Panchami, a Hindu holiday celebrating the coming of spring. Niruta, 14, was nine-months pregnant during the ceremony, attended by friends and relatives. Durga’s father hadn’t liked the idea of his son abandoning his education and marrying young, but after Durga’s mother’s death, the family desperately needed help in both the home and the fields. So they found a suitable young bride. The 2015 earthquakes devastated Nepal and left girls and women in an increasingly vulnerable position, leading experts to believe child marriage rates will increase over the coming years.
  • Holding his youngest child, Durga, now 26, sits in frustration in front of the rebuilt shed he shares with Niruta, now 24, their three children, a water buffalo, and a handful of chickens and goats. Niruta and Durga were married 9 years ago, when they were just 14 and 16 years old in the Kagati village of Nepal. The 2015 earthquakes devastated Nepal and left girls and women in an increasingly vulnerable position, leading experts to believe child marriage rates will increase over the coming years.
  • Kagati village, one year post-earthquake
  • Kagati village, one year post-earthquake
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In 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake leveled the Kagati village in Nepal, where 550 families were left homeless. Forced into marriage as young teens almost a decade earlier, Niruta, 23, and Durga, 25, found their already tenuous livelihood decimated and the futures of their three children at risk. Though Nepal has some of the highest rates of child marriage in the world — 41 percent of girls and 11 percent of boys marry before age 18 — the earthquake exacerbated the type of desperate poverty that forces many young brides and grooms into marriage before they are emotionally ready, thereby creating a vicious cycle of scarcity and hardship. See more from this story on The New York Times.