Her father helped her escape. He knew if she stayed in Ivory Coast, she’d be married against her will as a teenager, her genitals ritualistically cut, raped by her husband, and forced to bear his children. Her life as she knew it would end. She left for New York, where her father thought she would be safe. Now the U.S. immigration system wants to send her back. She is 16 years old.
On May 28, 2014, most Indian newspapers ran front-page stories about two teenage girls, cousins, who had been hanged in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after being allegedly gang-raped. Some papers also printed the disturbing image of the girls’ bodies hanging from a mango tree in their village. The public display of the young girls, wearing blood-stained clothes and riddled with thorns, caught India’s attention.
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