The BMJ Appeal 2023-24: The Combat squads fighting abductions and forced child marriage

Ama was 14 when she was abducted on her way home from school in the Upper West region of Ghana. “I was really scared and very worried about what was going to happen to me,” Ama recalls. “My elder sisters had been abducted and forced into marriage at an early age and they suffered terribly.”

More than 250 million women and girls globally were married before their 15th birthday.1 Early marriage most commonly follows violent abduction of girls living in the poorest rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and is closely associated with female genital mutilation.

“Early marriage robs girls of their childhood and their right to education, and it puts them at hugely increased risk of disabling complications such as obstetric fistula and death should they fall pregnant,” says Tasha Burgess, senior women’s rights campaigns specialist at ActionAid UK, the charity for this year’s BMJ annual appeal. “Pregnancy and childbirth …