Sitting from left: Yvone Kambiza, 16, Alinafe Naison, 19, Catherine Julio Funsani, 21, and Katrina Kampingo, 15, who were underage brides sit on March 7, 2015 inside a hall at the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (GEWE), a local organization whose objective is to fight early marriages and teenage pregnancies at the Mponela Trading Center in the area of Traditional Authority Mponela in Dowa District, some 70 kms north of the capital Lilongwe. Kambiza and Naison have since returned to school. Malawi is poised to adopt a law banning child marriages in a country which has one of the world's highest rates of under-age weddings. AFP PHOTO / AMOS GUMULIRA (Photo credit should read AMOS GUMULIRA/AFP/Getty Images)

A Rite of Passage That Pushes Young Girls Into Sex and Marriage

In Africa, girls are bypassing adolescence and skipping to adulthood through sex initiation camps widely condoned in their communities.

Observer