As part of a series of initiatives focused on empowering and protecting women and girls, the U.S. Mission partnered with the World Young Women’s Christian Association (World WYCA) for an event focused on the fight against Child, Early, and Forced Marriage. The working discussion was hosted by Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto, who emphasized the human rights aspects of an issue she said was “more accurately described as abuse and exploitation of innocent victims, not marriage.” In opening remarks, World WYCA Secretary General Nyaradzayi Gumbondzvanda lamented that, every day, 39,000 girls are forced into an early marriage, thereby deprived of any autonomy in deciding the most intimate and personal aspects of their lives. During the working-group discussions that followed, participants addressed the various dimensions of both the problem and potential ways of combatting it – community activism, education, government policy, how to enlist men into the struggle at the grass roots, the link between economic development and female autonomy, and more.