Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
Reem Al Numery is a children's rights activist in Yemen. Known for resisting child marriage, she was honored by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on March 11, 2009, with the International Women of Courage Award. She was listed in the Time Magazine 2010 100 Most Influential People in the World.
The International Women of Courage Award, also referred to as the U.S. Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award, is an American award presented annually by the United States Department of State to women around the world who have shown leadership, courage, resourcefulness, and willingness to sacrifice for others, especially in promoting women's rights.
Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the first female speaker of the Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad since April 2013 until August 2024. At 46, she became the youngest person to assume that office. She was also the chairperson of the executive committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2014 and 2017. She previously served as the state minister of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs of Bangladesh.
Sharmin Akhter Supta is a Bangladeshi cricketer who plays for the Bangladesh women's national cricket team. She plays as a right-handed batter.
Ghulam Sughra is a Pakistani activist.
Nadia Sharmeen is a Bangladeshi journalist. In 2015, she won the US State Department's International Women of Courage Award.
Tabassum Adnan is a Pakistani women's rights activist from the Swat Valley. She won the U.S. State Department's 2015 International Women of Courage Award for her efforts in seeking justice for Pakistani women.
Sara Hossain is a Bangladeshi lawyer. She is a barrister in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is the honorary executive director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a major legal aid provider. She has been at the forefront of advocating for women's rights in Bangladeshi courts and played a key role in drafting legal reforms to protect women. She was the plaintiff's lawyer in the landmark case of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLW) v. Bangladesh, in which the Supreme Court supported the judicial practice of referring to international human rights law in the absence of domestic legislation. She is known for her role in challenging fatwa violence when a fatwa is issued to mete out punishment to women and girls. She co-edited 'Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women with Lynn Welchman.
Sandya Eknalygoda is a Sri Lankan human rights activist. She became an International Women of Courage Award recipient in 2017. She has been campaigning for thousands of missing persons in Sri Lanka. She is married to missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda.
Jannat Al Ghezi is an Iraqi human right activist and the Deputy Director of Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. She and her organization help people caught in the Iraqi Civil War and they helped Yazidis and women of other cultures escape from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant despite the grave risk involved. They also help Iraqi women deal with domestic violence. Jannat was herself a survivor of domestic violence from her tribal family which believed she had dishonoured them. She is an International Women of Courage Award recipient.
Fadia Najeeb Thabet is a Yemeni post graduate student in America. In 2017 she was given an International Women of Courage Award for six years of work she did before 2016 as a child protection officer in Yemen.
Saadet Özkan is a Turkish activist against child abuse. She is a primary school teacher who found out that her pupils had been sexually abused by her principal. Despite pressure she succeeded in getting the crime investigated. She is an International Women of Courage Award recipient.
Orla Treacy is an Irish Loreto sister who runs a boarding school in war torn South Sudan and she works for Women's education and prevent child marriages. Born in 1973 in Bray, County Wicklow, she became an International Women of Courage Award recipient in 2019.
Jasmin Akter, is a cricketer, who was born in a Nayapara refugee camp in Bangladesh, and is Rohingya, an ethnic group savagely persecuted from Myanmar. She came to live in the Bradford, UK as a refugee, was a child carer for her mother, and started an all-Asian girls cricket team. She represented England in the first Street Child Cricket World Cup Charity match, and almost won. She was named one of the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women in 2019.
Anoyara Khatun is an Indian children's rights advocate. In 2017, at the age of 21 years, she was conferred India's highest civilian award for women, the Narishakti Puruskar, for her contributions to fighting child trafficking and child marriage in the state of West Bengal.
Rima Sultana Rimu is a Bangladeshi women's rights activists and advocate for gender-responsive humanitarian action in Cox's Bazar. She was named as one of the BBC's 100 Women for 2020.
Shorna Akter is a Bangladeshi cricketer who plays for the Bangladesh women's national cricket team as a right-arm leg-break bowler and right-hand batter.
