Tahani, 8, and her husband, Majed, 27, standing outside their home in Hajjah, Yemen, along with Tahani’s former classmate Ghada, 8, and her husband. © Stephanie Sinclair/VII

According to a recent report by the Ford Foundation and the non-profit organization Girls Not Brides, nearly ten million girls under the age of 18 are married each year, often to men who are ten to 20 years their senior. Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has been documenting child brides for the last decade in countries like Nepal, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Her images explore the many issues surrounding the cultural practice including poor reproductive health, social isolation, lack of education and domestic violence. Sinclair’s photos along with multimedia presentations by Jessica Dimmock will be on view at “Too Young to Wed,” an exhibition that opens today to mark the inaugural International Day of the Girl Child. The United Nations Population Fund and VII Photo are using the exhibit, on display in the Vistor’s Lobby at the United Nations in New York City, to launch a campaign to “raise awareness about child marriage, help girls who are already married and ultimately, to end the practice forever.” To learn more about child marriage and the exhibition, which ends November 29, 2012, visit tooyoungtowed.org.

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© Jared Moossy. A young Afghan girl up on one of the major hills over looking the Kabul at night.

The exhibition Women Between Peace and War: Afghanistan is a multimedia reflection of the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan as seen through the perspectives of rule of law, economics, health, and education. The reality for women in most communities in Afghanistan is hard, as indicated by these statistics: a woman’s chance of dying while giving birth is 1 in 8; the average life expectancy for a woman is 44 years; the approximate literacy rate for women stands at 12.7 percent; 70 to 80 percent of women are forced into marriages; 57 percent of girls are married before the legal age of  sixteen. This project, art directed by Giorgio Baravalle of de.MO and curated by Leslie Thomas of ART WORKS Projects, includes work by renowned photographers Lynsey Addario, Moises Saman, Stephanie Sinclair, Abbie Traylor-Smith, Veronique de Viguerie and Farzana Wahidy, and essays by journalist Elizabeth Rubin.

The exhibition will tour internationally in both digital and poster formats with an accompanying magazine that has removable pages, so that each image can be displayed. This flexible design will allow both formal installations in major cultural venues as well as community exhibitions to be easily produced for international sites. Previews and special screenings have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Conferencias do Estoril in Portugal, and at the US Department of State.

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© Thomas Lekfeldt/ Extra Bladet/Moment/ 1st Place World Understanding Award

Vibe and her father Michael enjoy a playful moment in the bathroom at their home in Hundested, Denmark.

The Annenberg Space for Photography presents its next exhibit, Pictures of THE YEAR International (POYi), with images from one of the most prestigious photojournalism competitions in the world. The exhibit titled, THE YEAR, showcases captivating print, digital and video imagery from some of the most notable events of 2009.

The exhibit will show approximately 80 prints and over 1,000 of digital selections, chosen from more than 45,000 global entries.  The print and digital photographs on display reflect the seminal events and issues that shaped our world in 2009, with views of youth culture, soldiers’ stories, the continued economic crisis, environmental disasters, pop culture, Communist and Middle East conflict, animal extinction, U.S. healthcare, and more.

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