Last November, Colombia passed a law prohibiting child marriage, giving 10.3 million girls the chance to reclaim their childhoods. When I read the news, I felt a rush of emotions — relief, hope and the bittersweet ache of what might have been for so many girls I knew who lived in the shadow of child marriage in India, including my grandmother, my aunt and my friends, all of whom had experienced being married as children under the age of 18.

For me, it brought a sense of justice and a renewed determination to end this global practice for good.

My grandmother’s story has always been a part of me, though it took me years to understand its full weight. She was married at just 10 years old, and her childhood was replaced by the rigid expectations of a new family.

Shortly after the wedding, her husband, more than 12 years her senior, left for England to study law, leaving her behind with in-laws she barely knew. She described to me how alien and frightening it felt to live in a strange house and be separated from her own family and friends.

“I wasn’t allowed to cry,” she told me once in Bengali. “That wasn’t what good daughters-in-law did.”

Instead of going to school, my grandmother was assigned a private tutor — not to nurture her own aspirations but to groom her into what her in-laws expected her to be. She learned the etiquette of how to behave, how to serve and how to fit into a life she hadn’t chosen. By the time her husband returned, she had already been molded into the role of a dutiful wife. She carried the weight of that time silently for decades, rarely speaking of the childhood she lost until late in her life, when we became close.

“I was just a child,” she said once, her voice trembling. “I wanted to play, to go to school, to be free — but I had no choice.”

Sadly, the practice did not end with her. My aunt’s story was painfully similar. She was married in an arranged match to a man chosen by my grandparents when she was just 16. The marriage was seen as an alliance — a way to strengthen ties between the two families. My aunt, like her mother before her, was cajoled into agreeing.

The marriage ended in a highly traumatic divorce eight years later, leaving my aunt with a scarlet letter of shame she didn’t deserve. When her marriage fell apart, the tension in the family was intense, and my grandmother blamed herself for repeating the cycle.

“I thought I was doing what was best,” she told me. “But I was wrong.”

Their stories haunted me as I grew up in Calcutta, the intellectual heart of India. Though my family never directly arranged a marriage for me (they tried, and failed, for my sister), I knew the pressure of the same kind of expectations.

I lived in a society where marriage was more than tradition — it was an inevitability for most girls. In high school, I watched as, one by one, my classmates started to share their wedding invitations. Not all of them were happy about what was about to happen. These were girls I laughed with, studied with and dreamed alongside. Now their dreams were set aside, replaced by responsibilities and pregnancies they weren’t ready to experience. Many stayed married and never discussed it. Some divorced or were widowed years later. Others just disappeared.

I was one of the lucky ones. My parents allowed me to play with my friends, to finish school and to make my own choices, like moving to the U.S. for college. But each wedding invitation I received was a reminder of the fragility of my own freedom. Even as I stayed in college — and was many years past high school — I felt the weight of societal whispers pressing down on me whenever I visited home.

“When will you settle down?” members of my extended family would ask, their pitying glances reminding me that my time was running out — that I was merely delaying the inevitable. I fought those whispers with every ounce of my will, determined to break the cycle that had trapped other women in my family for generations.

The trauma of child marriage runs deep. My grandmother lived it, my aunt endured it and my friends were consumed by it. It robs girls of more than their education — it steals their sense of self, replacing dreams with obligations and agency with silence. It also frequently results in devastating mental health challenges, including depression, psychological stress, substance abuse and suicidality. I’ve seen these consequences firsthand in the women I love, and I know the cost is immeasurable.

The excuses for permitting child marriage are always the same: poverty, tradition and protection. My grandmother was told it was her duty. My aunt was told doing it was to uphold her family’s honor. My friends were told it was for their security. However, none of these justifications hold up to the reality of the harm inflicted. Child marriage is not protection, it’s an abhorrent violation of a girl’s right to live her life on her terms.

I was a child, not a bride. I reclaimed my childhood, finished school and chose my own future. Today, I tell my story not just for myself, but for my grandmother, my aunt and the friends I lost to this practice. I tell it for the millions of girls who are still waiting for the chance to be free.

Colombia’s law is a beacon of hope, but it’s not enough. Around the world, 12 million girls are married each year before the age of 18. In the United States, nearly 300,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2018, many of them under laws that mirror the same loopholes Colombia just abolished.

The fight to end child marriage is far from over, but it is a fight worth waging. I share my story because it is both deeply personal and universal. It is a story of survival, of defiance and of hope. It is a reminder that every girl deserves to dream, to learn and to live as a child — not a bride. Together, we can create a world where no more childhoods are stolen. Let’s give every girl the freedom to write her own story — a story where the cycle truly ends.

S. Mona Sinha is the global executive director of Equality Now, an organization that champions legal and systemic change around the world to address violence and discrimination against women and girls, which has changed over 85 laws to date. She has been widely recognized for her impact on women’s equality by organizations such as Columbia Business School, Smith College, Forbes 50 over 50: Impact and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She has raised over $1 billion to resource the cause of women and girls. Mona is a fellow of the 2024 Public Voices on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls with Equality Now and the OpEd Project.

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