Giving Compass' Take:

• In this first-person essay for UN Women, Malti Tudu, 20, from a village in Bihar, India, talks about efforts to stop child marriage, which affects one in four girls in her region.

• In what ways can we support young activists like Tudu around the world in fighting child marriage? How can wider access to education help expand opportunities for girls?

• Here's why the Sustainable Development Goals child marriage targets are off track.

If all people start boycotting such weddings, it would definitely help eliminate child marriage.

People are needed during a marriage ceremony: a priest to perform the religious rites, musical band to play the music, cook to prepare the food for the guests and guests to give their blessings to the newlyweds.

I took a group of women with me and visited the parents of a 16-year-old girl whose marriage was fixed before she was of the legally appropriate age. Her parents shouted at us saying that they were in-charge of their daughter’s future. Her parents said that they had done it before and the wedding was attended by many people. They didn’t see anything wrong in such unions.

I told them that girls may die when they are married off early, when they are still children. It is extremely physically taxing for them. But the parents were not willing to listen.

Read the full article about the Indian activist trying to end child marriage by Malti Tudu at UN Women.