At 14, she defied her family’s plan to marry her late sister’s husband

Sushilata Nepali, a teenager from Achham district, resisted her family, her community and an entrenched tradition to stop her own child marriage. Now she leads the campaign to ensure no other child faces the same fate.

At 14, Sushilata Nepali from ward 6 of Mellekh Rural Municipality in Achham, one of Nepal’s most remote far western districts, should have been worrying about homework, school exams and the ordinary dreams of adolescence. Instead, she was preparing for a wedding she never wanted.