The young Sudanese girl was in elementary school when a 38-year-old man asked for her hand in marriage.

Her father accepted the proposal, and Amal (not her real name) was immediately wed.

In Sudan, child marriage has been woven into the fabric of the country's culture, driven by tradition and poverty. More than a third of girls there are married before their 18th birthday, according to a 2017 UNICEF report, and 12% are wed before they reach 15. Under the country's 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, children can marry when they reach "maturity," which is only 10 years old. It's the lowest legal age of marriage in Africa.

Noura in her own words: Teen who killed rapist husband shares her story

The recent case of Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein, sentenced to death earlier this year for killing her husband as he tried to rape her, has focused attention on child marriage in Sudan. Now 19, Noura was just 15 when she was forced to marry a man more than twice her age.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/africa/sudan-child-marriage-asequals-intl/index.html