Her older sister, who also married young, lulls her child to sleep nearby.

The sisters are among many villagers from Quang Ngai Province’s mountainous districts of Son Tay and Son Ha who married young.

Low levels of education are common for young girls and boys in the area, who often get married in their early to mid teens despite the Vietnamese legal marrying age of 18 for females and 20 for males.

Chin’s father Dinh Van Yeu, the head of Mang Hin residential area at Ra Pan Village in Son Tay District, said all three of his children married when they were quite young.

He said his other daughter, Dinh Thi Muoi, married when she was 13 and his son, Dinh Van Yen, got married at 16.

“We allowed them to marry because they loved each other,” Yeu said.

“But even though they are married, they can’t register the marriage with the commune’s People’s Committee.”

Yeu said seven of the 22 households in Ra Pan Village had allowed their children to marry at early ages.

Many local officials, who are supposed to know the laws, permit their children to marry before they reach the legal age.

Dinh Van Ngan, the chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Unit at Son Lap Commune in Son Tay District, recently held a wedding ceremony for his eldest daughter, who was only 15 years old and in grade seven at school.

The secretary of the Communist Party Unit at Son Bua Commune, Dinh Thanh Dua, has two married children.

One is in grade nine and the other in grade seven.

Obvious consequences

Because their marriages are not officially recognized, the young couples cannot register the birth of their children.

“Many parents take their children to school without birth certificates,” said Nguyen Van Minh, an official from Dinh Tien Hoang High School in Son Tay District.

“We have to guess their age and choose a random birthday so we can complete the paperwork for them.”

According to Son Ha Secondary School in Son Ha District, the majority of the 34 children who dropped out of school last year did so to get married.

“It’s an easy choice for them to stop coming to school after falling in love and getting married,” school principal Nguyen Sinh said.

“The figures were even worse in previous school years.”

Most students who gave up school to marry were between 14 and 16 years old, school deputy principal Nguyen Thi Ha said.

“There were surely many more cases of early marriage in the area,” she said.

At Dinh Tien Hoang High School in Son Tay District, early marriage has also forced many students out of school.

In some classes, more than half of the students dropped out of school to get married, school principal Bui The Gioi said.

The outlawed practice has resulted in many divorces in the area.

An 18-year-old woman from Son Bao Commune in Son Tay District, identified only as L., said she was now living with her third husband.

“I lived with my first husband for two years until he got drunk once and forced me back to my parents’ house,” she said.

“Six months later, I got married to my second husband, who also forced me out of his house after one year because I didn’t have any child with him.”

                                                                                         Source: Thanh Nien