Virus forces Asian girls into child marriage

NEW DELHI—Tens of thousands of girls across Asia are being forced into marriage by desperate families plunged into poverty because of the coronavirus pandemic, as campaigners warn years of progress tackling the practice is being undone. Child marriage has long been common in traditional communities from the Indonesian archipelago to India, Pakistan and Vietnam, but numbers had been decreasing as charities made inroads by encouraging access to education and women’s health services. These improvements are being eroded as the impact of the virus causes mass job losses leaving parents struggling to feed their families, experts say. “All of the gains we’ve made in the past...