Divya AryaBBC World Service
On a hot summer evening, when Nisha Vaishnav was 14, she and her sister Munna, 18, were at soccer practice when they noticed five unfamiliar adults taking photos of them.
Nisha quickly understood why they were there: the group was from the same family and included a couple looking for a bride for their son.
Nisha’s mother, also present, was keen to encourage the possibility of marriage.
They all returned to the Vaishnavs’ home in the village of Padampura in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan.
“My mother asked me to touch their feet as a sign of respect,” says Nisha.
“The women of the village pointed at us”
Although it is illegal for a girl under 18 or a boy under 21 to marry in India, in practice child marriage remains common.
About 25% of women living in India were married before reaching legal age, according to children’s charity Unicef.
In Rajasthan, child marriage rates are higher than the national average and girls rarely feel able to refuse a proposal or defy their parents’ wishes.
Nisha was introduced to soccer in 2022 by Munna, who discovered the sport a year earlier through Football for Freedom, which is part of a statewide nonprofit aimed at helping girls improve their lives through sports.
Munna had championed the project in her village, leading the battles for permission to go to tournaments and wear shorts on the field rather than long tunics and baggy pants – a huge step in a village where married women cover their faces in the presence of men in public.
“For the first two or three days, the women in the village were pointing at us and saying, ‘Look at these girls exposing their legs,'” says Munna.
“We ignored them, decided we didn’t care, and continued to wear shorts.”
Nisha quickly excelled in this game, rising to play for the Rajasthan state football team in the national football championship in 2024.
She also cut her hair short – an act of defiance in a village where girls are expected to let it grow long.
When the family watching her at soccer practice proposed to her, Nisha fought back.
She made it clear that she was too young to get married and wanted to continue pursuing her football dreams.
After about a month, the other family withdrew their offer.
Nisha and Munna also resisted a joint marriage proposal from another family in 2025, involving both of them and their younger brother.
When their father asked Nisha if a lover was waiting for her at soccer practice, she replied, “There is no lover. I’m going to play soccer, that’s my love.”
Finding a job through football
According to numerous studies, girls who marry as children are at increased risk of sexual coercion, early pregnancy, malnutrition and poor health.
They are also more likely to drop out of school prematurely, reducing their chances of improving their living conditions.
Padma Joshi of Football for Freedom, part of the non-profit women’s rights organization Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti, wants to raise awareness among families about these risks.
She says Football for Freedom has trained around 800 girls in 13 villages in Rajasthan since its inception in 2016.
“When we started talking to parents, we never said we were introducing football to end child marriage,” says Joshi.
Joshi tells parents that excelling in football could ultimately help their daughters find jobs, as Indian states reserve certain roles in the public sector for athletes.
Poverty, along with tradition, is one of the reasons why Indian families continue to marry off their daughters, who are often seen as a financial burden.
Nisha and Munna have an older sister who got married in 2020 at the age of 16, and their mother, Laali, was a child bride herself.
In defense of his decisions, Laali says villagers fear that unless their children are married off young, they will be “exposed to bad influences and run away with boys.”
Asked if she knew that marrying her eldest daughter at 16 was illegal, she agreed, explaining that no one gets caught: “We do it silently, we don’t print wedding invitations, we don’t decorate the house and we don’t put up tents.”
But the law is clear: facilitating child marriage is a crime.
Adults who perform ceremonies, as well as parents or guardians who authorize child marriage or negligently fail to prevent it, can be jailed for up to two years and fined 100,000 rupees ($1,100; £950).
If a child marriage is not reported, it can be registered later when both the man and woman have reached legal age and no one will be prosecuted.
The number of child marriage cases reported across India has gradually increased as awareness and enforcement of the law have improved.
According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 1,050 cases were reported in 2021, compared to 395 in 2017.
However, this represents only a tiny proportion of the 1.5 million girls under 18 who marry each year in India, according to Unicef.
Nisha, who is now 15 and still in school, hopes to one day play football for the Indian national team.
If she fails, getting a government job would allow her to become financially independent and have freedom.
To qualify for one of the jobs reserved for athletes, she must continue playing at the state level or better until she finishes college.
Even though Munna, now 19, has managed to escape child marriage, the possibility of an arranged marriage pushed by her elder sister’s in-laws remains.
She resists the proposal.
Munna hasn’t reached the same heights in football as Nisha, but she helps train girls through the Football for Freedom project and is studying for a degree at university.
She hopes to become a sports teacher in a school.
In the meantime, she advises the girls she trains to oppose child marriage.
“Whether or not I am able to stop their marriage, I want to help them become something in life, to achieve their dreams.”