Saumya Khandelwal
New Delhi, Delhi, India
Saumya Khandelwal is a contributor for The New York Times and National Geographic based out of New Delhi, India. She is the Getty Images Instagram Grantee for her work ‘Child Brides of Shravasti’. With interest in gender issues and environment, Khandelwal has worked as a photojournalist with Thomson Reuters in New Delhi, after having worked with national daily Hindustan Times for 3.5 years.
Over the past five years she has built a diverse body of work that spans photojournalism and documentary genres of photography. Recipient of the National Foundation of India Award 2017, Khandelwal has been published globally in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera etc.
Khandelwal’s work has been exhibited at the Getty Images Gallery, London, India Photo Festival, Hyderabad, and Goa Photo Festival, India. She served as a mentor and judge at Nikon Photo Contest, Behind Her Lens, 2018 and is involved in interacting with young photographers through workshops.
2017 - National Foundation of India Award, 2017 - Getty Images Instagram Grant, 2016 - Neel Dongre Photogrpahy Grant
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Child Brides of Shravasti
Saumya Khandelwal
Suman Nishad, 12 years old, from Kyotan Purva village became aware that she was getting married only when the ceremony officially started and haldi was put on her as per custom. Ten-year-old Jaggi, from the same village, got married 6 months back, but it was only when she applied vermilion on her forehead that the fact of her marriage sunk in. The same is the case with most other children who have to resort to such symbols to understand marriage, because they're too young to comprehend it otherwise.
This is Shrawasti district, Uttar Pradesh. It's got some of the worst, and most alarming statistics on child marriage in India. For example, consider this: “couples” in the age group of 10-19 have produced six million children. And Uttar Pradesh leads with the highest number of children born to underage parents at 1 million.
'Child Brides of Shravasti' looks at the lives of young girls facing child marriage and its realities.