Dear Chelsea - Minisode: International Day of the Girl: Ending Child Marriage

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau talks to Chelsea about why child marriage is still such a prevalent issue in the world - even in the US - and what we can do about it.  * You can help!  Visit Vow for Girls or Unchained at Last to get involved. Recommended Reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi there. Thanks for being with us today. We're sitting here with Princess Mabel von Naranya. Did I say your name correctly? Really? Really well. Okay, well, yeah, I'm an American, so you know, you've got to cut me some slack. We're under a lot of pressure these days. Thank you so much for being with us today. Very nice to be with you, Chelsea. Really lovely. Oh, wonderful. Okay, so this is great. This is going to be a nice educational episode for our listeners. Since many people aren't aware, there's actually a child marriage crisis all around the world, including here in the United States. So our guest today is here to talk about that for International Day of the Girl, which is tomorrow.

We wanted to shed some light on this issue, and we have somebody who knows a lot about it. So let's discuss. It says that nearly 12 million girls become brides each year, which means that every three seconds a girl is forced into marriage. I would presume that most Americans would never think that that's happening in this country. It's not just that Americans wouldn't think about it. I think most people all over the world were ignoring this. And I mean, think about it. The girl every three seconds, that's a girl and another girl.

And it goes on and on and on. And this is incredibly damaging. So it's a huge problem. But imagine that you are, let's say, a 14-year-old girl, whether you're growing up in the US or whether you're growing up in Latin America or in Africa. One day you come out of school. And basically, your parents have decided that you're not longer going back to school and are going to marry you off.

to a man that you haven't chosen, who's often a bit older than you are, and you're basically shipped off to go live with his family. And these girls then often end up being, you know, abused either by their in-laws or by their husbands. And also, these are girls that often, for them, their wedding night is not a happy event. Their wedding night might be the night when they get pregnant while they are physically children themselves. Right. Can you talk a little bit about some of the health risks to, younger girls who do get pregnant and what that can do to their bodies or why their bodies are not prepared for that? Yeah, I mean, we all remember when we were, you know, teenagers. We might

already get our period and things, but we're physically still children in a way. And so what you see is that teenagers, girls who get pregnant are much more likely to either have complications when they're pregnant or in childbirth. They're more likely to die in childbirth. But also what we see happening is that their babies are much less likely to survive the first year of life. And many of these child brides live in places where you don't have good health services. So if they get complications, they can't go to a hospital or to a clinic to get supported. Can I just ask you how you got it? I know you've worked with Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. And how did you get involved in this work?

So I was very lucky, like you say, Chelsea, to work with a group called The Elders, which Nelson Mandela had created, and it's a group of former heads of government, a former UN Secretary General's, really eminent individuals, including President Jimmy Carter was a member of this group, and they wanted to work on gender inequality. They were saying that the fact that men and women are not equals is one of the biggest injustices of our times, and not only that, it's also kind of stupid, because if we want to get out of poverty, women have to play their role. It's often women who live their families out of poverty. And so they then started looking at like what's happening, and we then came across the issue of child marriage.

And that issue of child marriage was, on the one hand, you know, the two words, child marriage, say it all. And everybody realizes this is not okay. But at the same time, the world was basically not paying attention. And I think that to a large extent, and it's because these girls, they're minors, they don't often have passports. Many of these girls don't speak English. A lot of them in places like Africa and Asia don't even have. access to mobile funds. And so these girls can't really self-organize. They do not realize that what is happening here is actually not normal and that it should stop and that it's not good for them if it

stops, but it's also good for their families. And to be clear, this is a very male problem. It's not like women are looking at young girls and saying let's marry these girls off. Right. Like only men have to be told by the government not to marry actual children. You're right. It's often the fathers or the community as a whole that drives this. And it's sometimes done because of poverty. You know, if you are really poor and you marry your daughter off, you have one less mouths to feed. It's sometimes done because of sexual safety, because the fear that if your daughter isn't married by a certain age, a man might misuse her and then, you know, she kind of dishonors herself and the family. It's sometimes done because of tradition. People just think like this is normal,

so they keep doing it. And it's always done in a way because girls, are looked upon as being less than men and, you know, less valuable and so you can do this with them. And I think, I mean, for me, one of the, so when the elders wanted to take this on, one of the places where I went was to Ethiopia and Africa to learn about this much more. And I'll never forget, at some point I sat down with a group in northern Ethiopia where four out of every five girls are married once they're 18. And I sat down with this group of married girls, young girls. And I asked the girl next to me, how old when you got married? And she looked at me and she said, well, I don't really know because I don't have a birth certificate. So many

girls who get bored, people don't register them because it's, oh, a girl, we don't need to register her. But she said, I must have been between five and seven years old when I got married. And I was sitting there and, I mean, I still get emotional when I think about it. Because at that time, My daughters were five and six years old. And I realized that even the lottery of life, they had been born there. They would probably have been child brides. And this is one of the things that drives me in everything I do. This idea that it's wrong, that the place where you're born, that your geography would define your destiny in life, you know, the opportunities you get.

I mean, I strongly, strongly believe that everybody deserves equal opportunities. And that's why I'm so passionate working on this issue. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with, a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is

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Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with the one, He only, Cardi B. My marriage, I felt the love dying. I was crying every day. I felt in the deepest depression

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and cannabinoids, to sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood, and also to have better day-to-day life. Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening now. And so your organization is called VOW, V-O-W. Tell us about the moment that you had the idea for VOW at one of your friends' weddings. That's correct. So, you know, I've been then, for the last 15 years, been working to end child marriage because, yes, it's a sad problem, but the good news is that there is a lot that we can do

in order to actually keep girls in school, to make sure that communities realize that when you give the girls the rights they deserve, you know, that that is good not just, that that is good not just for the girls, but for the communities. And so we realized we need to get more money to local organizations, communities in Latin America, in Africa and Asia that work to change this. And to mobilize that money, one day I was going to a wedding of friends. And you know how it goes when you go to a wedding week before and you get it. panic what should I wear you know and what should I buy for for the couple and so I went to their

wedding website and you know they had like like many you know a wedding list where you know you can buy china and glass and I don't know what and they said or alternatively give money to they had chosen a good cause and that for me was a light build moment I thought like wait what if the moment that people celebrate love under happy circumstances people who chose each other and they're like okay yes I want to share my life with you. What have we turned those moments into fundraising moments to make sure that girls elsewhere in the world can also choose love on their own terms?

And so that's where vow for girls was born. And of course, it's not just only people who are getting married who can contribute. I mean, basically anybody can contribute to vow for girls. And the beauty of it all is that 100% of the money we raise goes to the projects on the ground. And I've seen with my own eyes how very small amounts of money can make a huge difference for girls. And I'm curious, you know, some of those organizations that are boots on the ground in these various locations, like what are some of the things that they're doing? Are they promoting education?

Like, what are some of the programs? Promoting education is definitely one. Sometimes, you know, girls don't go to school because they don't have menstrual hygiene, you know, pets, etc. So sometimes it's an intervention like that that helps to keep girls. in school, or it is making sure that the bus fee can be paid so that, you know, she doesn't have to walk alone along dangerous roads. A lot of the projects, what we see, is basically helping girls bring them together in girls' clubs where they learn about their rights. I mean, I've met so many girls who did not realize that they're equal to boys, that they have rights,

that they should have choice in life. And that's incredibly empowering for girls. So, you know, I met, for example, these group of girls, and they had found out that one of them was going to be married off. And so they then collectively went to the father of the girl who was going to be married off, and they told him about their rights and about that it was wiser to keep the girl in school. And they managed to convince the father that indeed they should keep the girl out of marriage for another couple of years. I've also seen places where they do education around sexuality, helping, I mean, I've been too many girls in the world who are told that they should not get pregnant, but who do not know how you get pregnant. And I mean, if you don't know how to

avoid pregnancy, of course, then you might end up with an early pregnancy and then end up being very married off. Sometimes it's working with the fathers, helping them to understand that what might seem the right thing to do is actually not a wise thing to do, marrying their daughters of. And then what you see is this spreads like, you know, like, I don't know how you say this in English. I'm sorry. It's like spreads like wildfire, basically. Wildfire. There you go. And so what you see is that you then get entire communities who first, where everybody's like, of course in our community girls are married by the age of 16. They're now like, no, no, no. We do not marry our girls anymore before they're 16 or before they're 18. And so they take so

much pride in that. That's amazing. And that in the end benefits the boys and the men as well. Yeah, I remember a few years ago reading in that book, half the sky, it was so amazing to me to read that when you invest in women, whether that's education or, you know, small loans for businesses or that sort of thing, it benefits the entire community in such a more drastic way than if you invest just like generally in the community because women are reinvesting in their community. They're raising people who are more educated because they have an education. And it like the cycle really continues when you educate and help women and support. women. I mean, I think you covered a couple of these questions, but I was wondering if you could share with us some of your, like, some of the wins that your organization has had. Have you been able to change laws anywhere? So we have seen in the last 15 years, I think the biggest win is that the issue of child marriage is now widely recognized as a problem. And I think, you know, because if you have a problem, but you don't recognize it as a problem, you can't start solving it. So I think that in a way is the biggest win. Then what we have seen is that there are more countries

that have now laws that make it very clear 18 is the minimum age of marriage. We also see more countries that have policies now that say, okay, this is what we're actually going to do in order to keep girls out of marriage. And so worldwide, we have seen the decrease. Worldwide before, one out of every four girls would get married before 18. That is now gone down to one out of five girls. So that is real progress. And if you look at the United States, what is very interesting, and when we started working on this, I hadn't realized that child marriage was also an issue in Europe and in the United States. But you see how sometimes our preconceptions can be completely wrong.

What is very interesting, the total number of child rights in the United States is not as big as, for example, in India, whereas every year about three million girls get married. I mean, in the United States, it's much less. It's, I believe, around 25,000. But what was strange in the United States until about five or six years ago, in every state, you could get married before the age of 18. Either because there's no minimum law at all. So girls as young as two could get married, also boys, but it's often the girls that happens to. Or they would have a minimum age, but it wouldn't be 18, let's say 14 or 15.

Or they would have 18 as minimum age, but they would say there can be exceptions. If the parents agree or if the judge agrees, then it's okay. And I, of course, don't get this because we do not trust in America, young people are not allowed to vote until they're 18, because apparently we think they're not wise enough to do that. American people, young people, are not allowed to drink until they're, I think it's 18. You know, you're not allowed to buy a house. Yeah, yeah.

And so all these things you're considered too young to do them until you're 18 or even older. But for child marriage, it would be okay. That doesn't make sense. That's crazy. Thank you for all of the work that you're doing. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, to take all of this on, it's so necessary. So how can people donate to vow for girls?

Absolutely. I mean, look, my experience with all the change-making work that I've done in my life is that we can all make a difference, but nobody can do it alone. So on this issue, part of what we need is funding. And especially in a time where, you know, governments are decreasing, including in the United States, you know, USAID has ceased to exist. So when money is actually going down for these things, I think we as ordinary humans need to step up and help to make sure that financing continues to go to these young girls. So yes, please give to VAL for Girls and we make sure that that money really arrives with good. local organizations that do the work.

And the other thing is, if you believe that it's important that laws get changed in the United States, we have now an increasing number of states where laws have been changed to make sure that 18 is the minimum age of marriage and no exceptions, but that is only, I believe, in about 10 states so far. So I would highly recommend that if you want to help there, you can also write to your, you know, your governor or your congressmen or woman and urge that. them to change that. There's an organization in the United States called Unchained at last that actually does a lot of work. And on their website, you can find out what is happening

in your own state, et cetera. Wonderful. Yeah, we'll link in the description to Vow for Girls and Unchained as well. Yes. Yes. And thank you for being with us today and educating us on this. I'm really grateful that you guys are using this International Day of the girl to highlight this really important issue. And I'm very grateful to everybody who will help to make sure that girls can be girls and all prides. That's right. Thanks, Mabel. Thanks, Mabel. Bye-bye. Bye. I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale this week. It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting in February of next year. So I will be touring from February through June. I haven't added second shows yet, but we probably

will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now. If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the high and mighty tour. Do you want advice from Chelsea right into Dear Chelsea Podcast at gmail.com. Find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert, executive producer Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler.com. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up.

Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues, by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls, and they got rich.

If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. From tips for healthy living to the latest medical breakthroughs, WebMD's Health Discovered podcast keeps you up to date on today's most important health issues Through in-depth conversations with experts from across the health care community, WebMD reveals how today's health news will impact your life tomorrow.

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