Brides from Kenya’s smallest ethnic group El-molo are circumcised on their wedding day. Photo: Boniface Mwangi/Reuters

Child brides from West and Central Africa share their stories of marriage and motherhood.

Fatimetou, 16, from Mauritania, is seeking a divorce

My parents married me off when I was 13. I wasn’t told about it. A friend came to tell me, and I cried.

Before, my parents told me he was a very good man. But then when I got married, I realised that everything was a lie. When I told my family, they said that actually I was the problem and they told me to go back to my husband.

I kept returning to my family and they kept sending me back, so I had no choice but to sleep on the street.

I had to continue going to school, for myself. I couldn’t give up on that. I like maths and Arabic. My grades are quite good. I think I want to be a doctor or an engineer.

I asked my mother why she married me, and she said it was in my own interests, for my reputation.

When my mother realized that actually I can’t bear him at all and that it was affecting my health and my mind, that’s when she decided to be supportive.

Hopefully I can get a divorce because I was forced to marry him and actually child marriage is illegal in Mauritania.

I am optimistic that I can get out of this marriage. It has been three years now, and it seems like maybe now it might be over. When the marriage is ended I will be so happy.

Amina, 15, is the mother of a baby in Sierra Leone

I went to school up to class four, after which my mother said that I should stop going to school because I had to work carrying palm fruit from the farm to where it is processed into palm wine, and to help with the farm work in general. I was not happy that I had to stop going to school. Other people in the community were also not happy with my mother for taking me out of school.

I remember how I got married. My friend Kadie asked me to come to his farm. Foday was staying there and, when he saw me, he liked me and came and said that he loved me. I liked him also. So his family went to my parents to tell them that Foday was interested in me. That’s how it started.

We are happily married. My husband is a good man, and I am good to him as well. Our baby Ibrahim is six months old. I would like to have six children.

I don’t regret that I got married. I think I made the right decision. Maybe I was too young, but I don’t know what age is best for getting married.

My advice to young girls is that they should not do like others – they should take their education seriously. They should not encourage foolishness but instead be serious with their school so that they can be somebody in the future.

Brigitte, 17, mother of two in Democratic Republic of Congo

I gave birth to my first child when I was 13 when I was still in my first year of secondary school. Due to my pregnancy, I wasn’t able to finish the school year.

My husband Justin was about 15 years old and was in his fourth year of secondary school. Sometime later, and because he likes to flirt, he left for a mining centre in South Kivu.

He only came back in 2014 when I had returned to school. After a while, I became pregnant again. He then left once again and has never returned.

I didn’t gain anything good out of this, only difficulties – the two pregnancies and medical care for my children when they’re ill. Simply put, it’s my mother who takes care of my children and me.

I will be able to go back to school if I find someone who can take responsibility for me because my mother’s resources are becoming more and more limited.

Mariam, from Niger, suffered a fistula during pregnancy

I wanted to get married. I was 15. I knew I was a child, but I didn’t know there were risks. If I had been conscious of this, I would have waited until I got older.

I suffered from a fistula in my second pregnancy.

I now share my experience with other women about the risks of early pregnancy.

Now I know how to sew and I earn money. It’s good for me.

I speak a lot with the other women. I try to advise them and tell them what happened to me. They told me they won’t marry the girls so young any more.