This Teen Is Being Pushed To Wed Because Of The Pandemic. Her School Helps Her Resist

Since 2015, NPR has been following the efforts of a charity in Northern India that has an interesting solution to the problem of child marriage. It's called the Veerni Institute and it offers village girls who are child brides — or who are at risk of being married off young — the chance to continue their high school education. The institute runs what is effectively a boarding school for these girls in the city of Jodhpur. But on March 24 of last year, the staff had to scramble when India abruptly declared its first COVID-19 lockdown at 8 p.m. They had just four hours to get all 110 girls back to their homes in dozens of surrounding villages. And that would prove just the beginning of the challenges ahead. Here's what happened next:

Komal Rana, then in 10th