Child Marriage gives audiences unprecedented access to a commonplace story that remains tightly hidden. Despite being illegal, child marriage remains part of the culture across Africa.

The film begins with the ceremonial preparation for ten-year-old Wube-Enat's special day. She doesn’t recognize that the beating of the ceremonial drums marks the arrival of her wedding day, and has little concept of the implications of the celebration. In Amhara, a remote northern region of Ethiopia, half of all girls are married before they are fifteen years old. A majority have sex before they reach puberty, and many get pregnant as soon as it is physically possible. However, because their bodies are not fully formed and they rarely have access to trained health workers during pregnancy, the likelihood for labor complications is high.

The film introduces twelve-year-old Simenge, who is eight months pregnant, but would rather be in school than preparing for motherhood. Viewers also meet Achawache, who spent twelve days in labor at age fifteen before giving birth to a stillborn baby. She developed a fistula which left her incontinent and led to her husband’s desertion and ostracism by her community.

As a result of the stories of girls like these, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has begun speaking out against early marriage, and the Ministry of Health has sent health workers to villages to lecture against the practice in hopes of saving future generations from being forced into harmful child marriages.

"This very short film maintains its ethnographic objectivity while illustrating the objections to child marriage and the efforts to end it in northern Ethiopia in a Christian context."
‒Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database