Salwa (whose first name has been changed) had just turned 13 when her parents told her that she would get married in early 2023. The teenager was initially excited about the idea of the gifts that she would receive. "I thought that I would get lipstick, clothes and jewelry," she explained during a video call while she cradled her baby, who is just a few months old. "I didn't realize that this marriage would involve being with a man older than me. Because of the floods, my parents lost their land. They had no other choice." In Khan Mohammad Mallah, a small village in Pakistan's Sindh province, Salwa is far from being the only teenager to have been married off by her parents since the deadly floods of 2022. Mashooque Birhmani, the founder of the NGO Sujag Sansar, who works with local communities to combat child marriage, recorded 45 underage marriages in 2024 in this village alone, a third of which took place in May and June, just before the monsoons began.

Monsoons, which are vital for Pakistan's millions of farmers and for the country's food security, have become longer-lasting and stronger than ever in recent years, causing countless floods and the destruction of farmland. These natural and economic disasters, exacerbated by global warming, have led to a new trend, which the Pakistanis call "monsoon brides." "We observed a regular increase in forced marriages during the most destructive floods in Pakistan's history: 2007, 2010 and 2022," said Gulsher Panhwer, a project manager at Sujag Sansar.

According to a study conducted by two Pakistani academics on the aftermath of the 2010 floods, the marriage rate for girls aged 15-19 rose from 10.7% to 16% the following year. In Sindh province alone, almost 4.8 million people were affected, half of whom were still children. In this region, almost a quarter of girls were married before the age of 18. "With no income, farmers are so desperate that they marry off their daughters for the equivalent of the price of a cow or even less. They hope to keep them out of poverty and gain enough money to feed the rest of their families," explained Panhwer.

By 2022, a third of Pakistan, which is the world's fifth-most populous country, had been flooded and precious crops devastated in a nation where agriculture accounts for a quarter of GDP and one in three jobs. Many farming villages in Sindh province never recovered from the floods, which displaced millions of people. "We used to live off our land, but in 2010 it was destroyed by the monsoons. To survive, we had to move to another province," said Aiza, a 29-year-old mother of two. Despite this migration, the small family struggled to feed itself and decided to marry off the younger daughter. Deeba was 12 years old when she was married to a 25-year-old man in exchange for 150,000 Pakistani rupees, the equivalent of €480. "She was happy to receive new clothes and bracelets, but when we took her to her husband's house, she clung to me and we started crying. I regret it so much," sobbed the mother of the family, who was herself married at the age of 16.

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