Photos Depicting Early Marriages in Georgia to Go on Display

TBILISI - Photos, depicting stories of early marriages in Georgia by EU Prize winning Georgian photographer Daro Sulakauri will go on display as part of the UN Joint Programme for Gender Equality for International Women’s Day.

On Friday, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Georgia will present the photo exhibition Deprived of Adolescence at 4pm, at the Zurab Tsereteli Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in Tbilisi.

Daro Sulakauri is a young Georgian photographer. Her works are highly recognized by Georgian and foreign professionals. She has won several prestigious awards, including the EU prize for journalism received in 2016.

She won second place at the Magnum Foundation's Young Photographer in the Caucasus award in 2009, with her photo story "Terror Incognita", documenting the plight of Chechen refugees in Georgian territory.

“The first photograph I showed to the Georgian public was a photo of a seventeen-year old at her wedding. She had only met her soon–to–be husband, a man in his mid-twenties, on the day of their engagement. As tears dropped from her eyes, she danced in front of her house. The dance demonstrated a farewell to her family, before the wedding ceremony,” Sulakauri said.

The harmful practice of early marriage is a countrywide problem in Georgia. A 2014 study by the UNFPA indicated that up to 17% of Georgian women marry before their 18th birthday – one of Europe’s highest rates of underage marriage. Neighboring Turkey has an early marriage rate estimated at 14%. Arranged child marriage occurs more frequently among religious minorities in the mountainous areas of Adjaria, and ethnic minorities in the region of Kvemo Kartli, the research emphasized.

UNFPA Georgia Assistant Representative Lela Bakradze emphasizes early marriage yields grave consequences for girls in Georgia, excluding them from social life, depriving basic rights, and preventing from completing education.

“Pregnancy and childbirth during adolescence poses risk to maternal health and the baby. Causes of early marriage are complex, therefore, multifaceted work on the policy and legislative level is crucial for addressing the harmful practice, as well as working with communities and the adolescents for changing perceptions and attitudes towards early marriages,” Bakradze commented.

By Tamar Svanidze

Edited by Chloe Diamond

Photo: Daro Sulakauri