These girls are married off before they are physically or emotionally mature enough to become wives or mothers.
It is estimated that two-thirds of Bangladeshi girls are married before the age of 18.
In parts of Ethiopia, half the girls are married before their 15th birthday.
In Mali, young girls are married by force, recruited by militia, and prevented from going to school and leading a dignified life.
She is from the village of Tajpur in the Joypurat district of Bangladesh, a country where 66% of girls are married before 18 years of age, according to children's charity World Vision.
In accordance with that Yemeni custom, little girls are routinely married off to grown men.
Siskel's daughters were flower girls when Ebert married his wife, Chaz, in 1992.
More than 13.5 million girls under 18 are married each year across the world -- and the figure is rising according to Erica Hall, Child Rights Policy Director at World Vision.
For instance, nearly half the girls in developing countries are married during their teenage years, with many before age 15.
They reconnected again a year later after Kelly -- who had been married with two girls -- divorced his first wife.
Thousands of girls under 14 are reported to have been married off to richer, much older men, he adds.
Some women who have fled have described how teenage girls (as young as 15) have been married off to polygamous men three times their age, and are then having babies (the teenage birth rate of Creston is three times the provincial average).
Some 47% of the boys agreed that married couples made better parents than unmarried couples, compared with 32% of girls.
BBC: Marriage no longer a key goal for girls, survey suggests
Girls, he says, run away because their parents cannot afford dowries to get them married, and they don't want to be a burden to their families anymore.
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Those girls in the front row weren't even old enough to be the next ones to get married.
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The survey indicates that in 2012 girls are more likely to define success as being confident and independent (56%) rather than being married (21%).
BBC: Marriage no longer a key goal for girls, survey suggests
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