Imagine being married at 14 – that's the average age of marriage here in Ethiopia, a country that has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Africa. Despite 18 being the legal age for marriage, many families ignore this and choose to marry their young daughters off far earlier to much older men (on average, girls in Ethiopia are nine years younger than their husbands). Forced early marriages like this result in regular unprotected sex for young girls, which in turn leads to painful infections (sometimes including HIV) and dangerous births. It also results in less education for girls, and far fewer opportunities – instead they're expected to look after the household under the control of an older, more dominant man.

I travelled to Ethiopia's rural Surba ahead of the Girl Summit 2014 to meet with girls affected by forced early marriage and FGM. Surba is 25km outside a town and a massive 57km from a main road. Here, I joined a community discussion for young girls – Girl Club – which is part of the Finote Hiwot End Child Marriage Programme, run by the Ethiopian government in a bid to change attitudes and cultural beliefs surrounding child marriage and FGM. With the help of a local translator, I asked one of the girls - Yeshalem, 14 – to tell me her incredible story…

"My parents married me to an 18-year-old man when I was just three-years-old. Marrying young is still something that is celebrated by some communities in Ethiopia – my mother was married at four-years-old. Because returning to your parents after getting married is seen as taboo, she was forced to stay with him – and was sexually active because of this. As a result, my mother gave birth at 12-years-old.

"Because my parents wanted to 'marry me off' quickly too, I was 'cut' (genital mutilation) by a leader in the community before the wedding. Here, some people think that if a girl isn't 'cut' then she won't be obedient and will misbehave towards her husband. It's a dangerous practice – there's just one tool in the village to do it and everybody is cut with the same one. It's full of disease – it spreads quickly between us. When women who are 'cut' give birth later, the scar tears too – it is said to be very painful.

"After the wedding, I was immediately sent to live with my husband and his parents – my in-laws. My husband said to my family (and his), 'No, she's too young' and eventually they all relented, and I was allowed to return to my own family. I think of him as a friend for doing that.

"Because of that, I was able to go back to school. I was in love with learning and didn't want to leave. But my parents soon tried to marry me off again – to a different man this time. I was upset – I hated the idea. I wrote down what was happening on a piece of paper, and handed it to a teacher at my school. She told the police, who frightened my father off – making him sign a piece of paper which confirmed he couldn't try and marry me again, unless I consented. She wanted me to stay in school too. The man I was nearly forced to marry then married somebody else instead. I was so relieved. But soon they divorced. Because of this, he came back for me.

"Because this man's family was rich, my parents – my father especially – said yes. I insisted that I didn't want to – I kept pleading that I wanted to stay in school and at home. They said if I kept refusing, I would have to leave the family home. I felt so desperately sad and afraid – I had nowhere to turn. My schoolwork began suffering and I started hated going to school – which I normally loved. Eventually, my teacher asked what was wrong and why my behaviour had changed. I told her. She managed to speak to my father for a final time, and eventually he agreed, saying, 'You are so headstrong, I give up. Stay in school!' He was angry, but I was overjoyed.

"My father still hates the fact that I go to school – he even hides my uniform from me so I can't go. But I do. He doesn't want me to learn, but my mother does and she encourages me quietly. My father hates me coming to the Girls Club meetings too, he says, 'You've done enough harm, now you're encouraging other girls to do the same?'

"But things are already changing here already because of meetings like this. Now, when girls are going for their hospital checks (HIV checks) before they get married, the doctors and nurses check that they are over 18 before they do them. We also have a secret box in our school where you can write down if somebody in the community is going to be married early – or cut – and we can report it, and try to stop it. I never lost hope that I could stay in school and learn, instead of giving it all up so young. But it shouldn't be that hard for girls like me."

The UK's first ever Girl Summit will take place on 22nd July

Pledge your support for girls like Yeshalem here

Images by James Hassam

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Sophie Goddard Features Editor I’m Cosmo's Acting Features Editor.

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