By Ishana Sen Das

I Don’t Need a Husband Yet (curated for Planet Classroom by XTalks.Org) documents a presentation given by 15-year-old Rachel, who speaks passionately about the injustice of marrying young girls in their teens. As Rachel’s audience mainly consists of teenagers in her Malawi school, she addresses them directly when she asks them at what age they imagine themselves getting married. She continues to explain that many girls in Malawi will get married at ages as young as thirteen.

She talks about how a young teenage girl will be forced to leave her life behind for one she is not ready for – a life of bearing and raising children. Rachel describes the enormous pressure put on young girls to get money for their families through marriage. Their parents need money for the family’s food, clothes, and “most importantly, they need money to keep their son at school.” Rachel urges her audience to examine the way many families value the education of boys over girls. This culture robs girls of the lives that they never knew they could have.

Though I thought the film could have benefitted from more footage of the audience’s reactions, I found Rachel’s talk itself moving and would give this film a 4/5.  

Ishana is a junior at Duke University. She is majoring in Literature with a minor in Cinematic Arts and Environmental Science. She enjoys watching and writing about films, as well as learning about filmmaking and production. 

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