Story highlights Many Syrian families are marrying off their teenage daughters to much older men

The practice is aimed at protecting the girls from poverty and civil war

(CNN) When photographer Laura Aggio Caldon spent several months with Syrian war refugees last year in Lebanon, she met a pregnant mother whose life was consumed with three things: cleaning house, reading the Quran and raising a 1-year-old boy.

Her name was Marwa. She was only 15.

It didn't take long for Caldon to realize she wasn't talking to a little girl. "Marwa was a woman who had lost her childhood," she said.

Marwa is one of countless girls under 18 who have been married off by their parents in hopes of protecting them from the horrors of Syria's civil war. These marriages, Caldon said, are creating a "lost generation."

The practice is another dark consequence from the nearly five-year war as civilians struggle to survive the fighting between government troops, rebel forces and ISIS terrorists. Many Syrian families try to protect their young daughters from poverty and war by marrying off their girls to men sometimes twice their age.

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