On Valentine’s Day, the United Nations shared a social media post decrying child marriage.
While the sentiment is important and valid, the organization received an embarrassing community note for the image they used.
They wrote on X, “Every 3 seconds, a girl is married somewhere in the world.”
“Child marriage is a human rights violation that denies girls the chance to reach their full potential.”
“This #ValentinesDay, join @UNFPA in speaking out against this form of gender-based violence.”
Every 3 seconds, a girl is married somewhere in the world.
Child marriage is a human rights violation that denies girls the chance to reach their full potential.
This #ValentinesDay, join @UNFPA in speaking out against this form of gender-based violence: https://t.co/UyRhZUcH6G pic.twitter.com/tm0PkNDDYU
— United Nations (@UN) February 14, 2026
The image they used featured a fair-skinned blonde in a wedding dress.
Community Notes called out the image for deliberately misleading the public, noting, “The image in this post is deliberately misleading.”
“Even their own site shows that the vast majority of child marriages happen in countries that are predominantly dark skinned. The use of a white woman with blond hair is a dishonest representation of the problem.”
According to the latest available data from UNICEF, Girls Not Brides (which draws on UNICEF datasets), the countries with the highest rates of child marriage for young girls are predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, with some in South Asia and elsewhere.
Girls Not Brides lists the following countries with the highest rates of child brides.
01 76% Niger
02 61% Central African Republic
03 61% Chad
04 54% Mali
05 52% South Sudan
06 51% Bangladesh
07 51% Burkina Faso
08 48% Mozambique
09 47% Guinea
10 45% Somalia
11 41% Eritrea
12 40% Ethiopia
13 39% Madagascar
14 38% Malawi
15 37% Mauritania
16 36% Suriname
17 35% Nepal
18 35% Nicaragua
19 34% Belize
20 34% Honduras
The United Nations Population Fund shares similar statistics, yet still chose a misleading image.
Nearly half of child brides live in South Asia (45 per cent), with the next largest share in sub-Saharan Africa (20 per cent), followed by East Asia and the Pacific (15 per cent), Latin America and the Caribbean (9 per cent), Middle East and North Africa (6 per cent) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (3 per cent). The highest prevalence of child marriage is seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three adolescent girls are marrying before age 18.
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