From her studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Joan Weissman designs vibrant, ornate rugs that are woven by hand with wool and fine silk. With each collection and customized design, her creations go from pencil sketches to authentic bodies of work that are crafted and shipped to the United States by artisans in Nepal.

Attached to each imported rug is a little label with a traceable serial number that serves as proof that Weissman’s rugs were made by the hands of skilled craftsman, not by the tiny hands of children. Since its conception in 1994, GoodWeave, formerly called the RugMark Foundation, has been working to get these labels—featuring GoodWeave’s blue and tan emblem—attached to every rug manufactured in India and Nepal, two countries where child labor is excessively exploited.

by Sarah Degnan Kambou, PhD, president of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)

Iredjourèma was born in 1935 to a traditional healer in Burkina Faso. She was the third of ten children, and lost her mother when she was 12.

As a young girl, Iredjourèma was regarded as a talented, graceful dancer. She was smart, too. But she never had the opportunity to attend school because she was needed to tend the family’s sheep. At 16, Iredjourèma’s family arranged for her to marry a man eight years her senior. She carried nine pregnancies to term, and nearly died giving birth to her youngest child.

Today, there are more than 50 million child brides like Iredjourèma worldwide, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Child marriage — the practice of marrying girls younger than 18, often to much older men — is a violation of girls’ human rights. It also compromises their education, health, well-being, and productivity.

IPRA développe des programmes dans les écoles au moyen d´un plan d´études visant à inculquer dans les cœurs et les esprits des jeunes de Cachemira la démocratie, le laïcisme, la justice sociale et les droits de l´homme. Le programme aide à maintenir les enfants  loin des champs de bataille avec des résultats très encourageants.

(English version)