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.
