When Fatmata was kidnapped from a market in Mali last year, she was scared for her life.
When the Malian schoolgirl realised she would be forced to marry her captor, she feared for her future.
The 15 year old was taken to a village in southern Mali, where she discovered that her abduction - a practice known as bride kidnapping - was fuelled by vengeance.
In an earlier raid, Fatmata's brother had himself abducted her kidnapper's sister.
"I was very scared - I cried all the time," Fatmata said at school in the village of Mahou.
"I didn't like the young man, at all, and I hated the idea of being forced into marriage," she added, fidgeting with her headscarf and glancing around the empty classroom as she spoke.
Mali has one of the world's highest rates of child marriage.
Around one in seven girls are wed by the age of 15 and more than half by 18, says the UN's children's agency (Unicef).
Child marriages in Mali, and across West Africa, are carried out to strengthen ties between families, alleviate poverty, and avoid the stigma of a girl having sex outside of wedlock.
And in parts of southern Mali, the act of bride kidnapping is rife, and difficult to prevent, activists and local officials said.
While some girls escape, or are released, others are forced to wed and do domestic work.
Yet school pupils in the region are striving to save their peers from a similar fate.
Student groups are teaching their classmates about sexual and reproductive health, warning them about child marriage and teen pregnancy, and helping vulnerable pupils and victims.
Fatmata's month-long captivity ended last year after pupils and teachers at her school worked with the local council and authorities to pile pressure on her captor and his family.
"We are proud to have played a part in preventing forced marriages and negotiating the return of our classmates," said Marceline Moumkana, 16, one of Mahou's peer educators.
In rural Mahou - 440km west of Bamako - the issue of child marriage is compounded by the deeply rooted local tradition of bride kidnapping.
The men who kidnap girls to wed may be unable to afford a dowry, or have struggled to find a willing wife, activists said.
If the kidnapper has sex with the girl, she could be seen as too tainted to marry anyone else, causing her family to accept it.
"Girls being taken to other villages to be married happens frequently around here ... so it is hard to estimate the numbers," said Sonou Diarra, headteacher of the school.
Girls fight abduction for marriage purpose
When Fatmata was kidnapped from a market in Mali last year, she was scared for her life.
When the Malian schoolgirl realised she would be forced to marry her captor, she feared for her future.
The 15 year old was taken to a village in southern Mali, where she discovered that her abduction - a practice known as bride kidnapping - was fuelled by vengeance.
In an earlier raid, Fatmata's brother had himself abducted her kidnapper's sister.
"I was very scared - I cried all the time," Fatmata said at school in the village of Mahou.
"I didn't like the young man, at all, and I hated the idea of being forced into marriage," she added, fidgeting with her headscarf and glancing around the empty classroom as she spoke.
Mali has one of the world's highest rates of child marriage.
Around one in seven girls are wed by the age of 15 and more than half by 18, says the UN's children's agency (Unicef).
Child marriages in Mali, and across West Africa, are carried out to strengthen ties between families, alleviate poverty, and avoid the stigma of a girl having sex outside of wedlock.
And in parts of southern Mali, the act of bride kidnapping is rife, and difficult to prevent, activists and local officials said.
While some girls escape, or are released, others are forced to wed and do domestic work.
Yet school pupils in the region are striving to save their peers from a similar fate.
Student groups are teaching their classmates about sexual and reproductive health, warning them about child marriage and teen pregnancy, and helping vulnerable pupils and victims.
Fatmata's month-long captivity ended last year after pupils and teachers at her school worked with the local council and authorities to pile pressure on her captor and his family.
"We are proud to have played a part in preventing forced marriages and negotiating the return of our classmates," said Marceline Moumkana, 16, one of Mahou's peer educators.
In rural Mahou - 440km west of Bamako - the issue of child marriage is compounded by the deeply rooted local tradition of bride kidnapping.
The men who kidnap girls to wed may be unable to afford a dowry, or have struggled to find a willing wife, activists said.
If the kidnapper has sex with the girl, she could be seen as too tainted to marry anyone else, causing her family to accept it.
"Girls being taken to other villages to be married happens frequently around here ... so it is hard to estimate the numbers," said Sonou Diarra, headteacher of the school.
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