capital, which attracts young tourists in droves -- and this man shows them around. meet one of our berlin globals. mauritania's diawling national park is a wildlife hotspot -- but it didn't use to be like this. we find out about its transformation. but first we head to india to learn more about young girls and marriage, in which romance rarely plays a role. forced marriages can be nothing short of devastating for the young girls involved. early marriage frequently means

early motherhood, and that often means dropping out of school. this form of human rights abuse is not limited to a few countries, either -- it's a global issue. in fact, around 700 million women and girls alive today were married off before they were 18. and more than a third were not even 15. the world leader when it comes to child brides is india. the u.n. estimates that nearly half of all indian women are married off before they are 18. reporter: this is muneera khan, at work in a women's center in hyderabad. she tells us she's 19, but doesn't know exactly when she was born. muneera was only 11 years old when her parents sold her for

50,000 rupies -- the equivalent of 800 euros. muneera: no one asked me. my relatives came together and decided to marry me off to a 75-year-old man from oman. they only told me on the day of the wedding. when i saw the old man, all i could do was cry. i tried to protest and said i'm they only told me on the day of far too young. reporter: india outlawed child marriage in 2006. but in muneera's case, as with many other women here, the marriage broker used falsified documents. a corrupt imam presided over the wedding ceremony. muneera was forced to go with the old man. for three weeks he sexually abused her in a hotel in hyderabad. then he disappeared. when the man was informed that muneera was pregnant, he divorced her -- over the phone from oman. that was eight years ago. until recently, the muslim practice of instant divorce was

legal in india. muneera's daughter mushkan has never seen her father. muneera: i have suffered a great deal. whenever i think about it, it still upsets me immensely. i don't want to cry here in front of my daughter. mushkan shouldn't have to ask why her mother is unhappy. that would upset her too much. reporter: muneera takes us to her parents. she had no choice -- pregnant and still a child herself, then a single mother, muneera had to move back home. her mother, rafia begum, tells us how much she has also suffered because of this story -- but she means her daughter's divorce. she still doesn't see anything wrong with the marriage itself. she only wanted her daughter to have a better life in the united arab emirates and says she had no idea the older man was only after sex. rafia: our neighbors also married off their daughter to a

sheikh -- and she got a w use and a small fortune. i was hoping for the same for muneera. that's why we married her off. reporter: muneera's family lives in a poor muslim area. many people here believe that selling their daughters off to themirates will be their salvation. the women's rights group shaheen says that this happens in every third family here. every day, desperate girls show up at the women's center. not all of them are about to be sold off abroad. often they come because of everyday problems. jameela nishat is the founder of shaheen. she doesn't accept poverty as an excuse. she says the problem is that many muslim families view women as property. jameela: it's not just poverty. because there was poverty earlier, also, but greed is one

of the things -- especially as the girl was married many times. they were getting so much extra money. supposing she was married one time, she may get 50,000. second time, another 50,000. and if she's good-looking, very young, she's paid more. reporter: authorities in hyderabad have recently started to crack down on the trafficking of women and girls. earlier this year, police arrested numerous people -- including indian marriage brokers and men from the emirates seeking a child bride. many of them are alreadyarried and wanted a second or third wife, or just a quick thrill. we meet the man who made the arrests possible. haji khan himself spent years brokering illegal marriages to arab men. he shows us the hotels that cooperated with him. he warns us not to go there -- there would be trouble. he tells us trafficking the women and girls is easy, because until recently many indians

didn't have official birth certificates or id's. haji: the girls now say they were 11 or 12 years old, but that's not true. in reality, they were already 18, i think. all right, maybe some were only 14 or 15, but only a few. in any case, we just forged the paperwork to show they were 24 or 25. the scheichs contacted us via middlemen. they then travelled to india officially for medical treatment in a hospital. then they married the girls. most of them left the girls behind. i knew the entire time that all this was illegal and i could end up in jail if the police caught me. reporter: at some point, he says he started to feel guilty. haji khan went to the police and helped them crack a trafficking ring. the story is confirmed by

hyderabad's assistant commissioner of police. he led the investigation and he still can't believe how parents are willing to sell off their children -- many of them under age. mohammad: certain facts when we know -- what is this, how is this happening, how the parents are sending like this. maybe going to the school, if she's not coming back at the given time, scheduled time, we will call the principal. now the girl is being sent to the country where you don't have even free will. reporter: many people in the slums of hyderabad are deeply religious. the corrupt islamic clerics involved in trafficking child brides take advantage of their authority. the indian government gives the country's muslim minority the right to issue its own marriage certificates. the islamic clerics who conduct the marriage ceremonies tell parents it's all in accordance

with the koran. muneera khan has paid a bitter price for this cynicism. as a divorced single mother, she will have a hard time ever getting remarried. muneera: i want to share my story with everyone. i don't want more girls to be sold off. the girls should be made aware of what's in store for them. reporter: most of the women at the shaheen center have been traumatized. here, at least, they are provided with safety, support, and care -- and given the chance to regain control over their lives. host: around 650 million people around the world own a gun. almost half of these private individuals are from the u.s. the right to bear arms is firmly anchored in the american constitution, but it remains a controversial topic.

in 2014, firearms were responsible for the deaths of 34,000 people in the u.s. two thirds of them were suicides. who exactly decides to go out and buy a gun? in surveys, nearly a third of all u.s. hseholds have admitted to owning a pistol or rifle. the large majority of u.s. gun owners are white- 81%. and almost three quarters are men -- but that may be about to change. >> good morning. >> good morning. reporter: these women are learning how to shoot. they're housewives, sile mothers, and pensioners. they're middle class, and most of them have ever held a gun before. marchelle: my name is marchelle tig washington. this is trigger happy firearm instruction, my company.

i've been teaching for about a year and a half, now i started out in the military, shooting rifles. reporter: marchelle tig washington's courses cater to african-american women. her workshops across the country are always fully booked. lesson one -- safety training with dummy guns. it may look like fun, but the participants take it very seriously. doris: i have never shot a gun before. but with the way things are going now, it's really necessary that we all learn how to protect ourselves. katherine: i think that after the incident a few weeks ago in charlottesville, it just occurred to me that we can't totally depend on law enforcement to protect us, to be there for us. reporter: the white supremacists rally in virginia this summer confirmed for many that open racism remains widespread in the u.s. it's a factor cited by many of the women flocking to marchelle washington's courses. once they're at the shooting range, the first step is learning how to load a gun.

the next step is firing with live ammunition. it's not as easy as marchelle makes it look. marchelle: don't rush it. focus. inhale, exhale, squeeze. reporter: this participant got off to a good start. after her very first go, the target figure is riddled with holes. everyone gets ten shots, and encouragement as well, if needed. these aren't gun enthusiasts -- they're women who are afraid. marchelle: that's all it takes. nobody's getting back up from that. that's right here in this breastbone right here. that means the lungs are collapsed. he's not getting back up. reporter: so, how do participants feel? maxine: powerful -- and it's

serious. i mean, it's a little scary. and i've fired -- it's not my first time coming to the range, but it's a little nerve-wracking. reporter: it's all smiles for the souvenir photo. none of the women are great shots yet, but they do feel more confident. marchelle tig washington belongs to the national african american gun association -- the first group of its kind for african-americans. the atlanta branch alone has grown from 500 to 1000 members within two years, and 600 of them are women. and the industry is happy to supply them. gun stores now also stock products specially designed for women. it's shopping time for pensioner marcia. she wants advice on a handgun, to bring along to the next firearms course. but can the ever-growing number of weapons really help in the

fight against racism? marchelle: it's especially minorities. we can be easy targets because a lot of us don't have firearms education. so i think with firearms education, we can learn how to legally defend ourselves and we won't be targets of hate crimes like we are now. reporter: marcia lives in rural geora. e women atnding the gun classes say that in the southern states of e u.s., rasm has ner reallyone away- it was ju less vible. ey fear e trump adminiration iempoweri the wrong people, and at racisis even becing acceptle again. marcia still remembers the segregation era. as a child, she wasn't allowed to cross these train tracks because the other side was an all-white community. now, at the age of 65, she feels she needs a gun. marcia: the black woman, in a sense, has kind of escaped a large portion of that, but i think that, just again, with the culture changing, we can't say that's going to remain status quo. reporter: marcia meets up with

her sisters. none of them have been subjected to actual physical attacks, but they feel threatened by unpleasant remarks. the past has left a deep legacy of fear. marcia will be booking a place on the next gun course, and bringing some friends with her. marica: oh yes, i'm taking it to my church, i'm going to put a bulletin out with a couple of retired airline women that we meet often. so, i'm on a crusade. reporter: these women are seeking reassurance from guns because they no longer trust the government to protect them and diawling national park -- an undeniable paradise for birds. nowhere else in west africa can you find so many different varieties of birds in such a small area. the park is located at the border between mauritania and

senegal, around the senegal river delta. the region is highly vulnerable to climate change. our reporter juliaenrichmann wento find outore. reporter: year for year, the sea level here has been rising -- as locals can see with their own eyes. a growing number of them are having to leave their homes along the beach. the older generation still remembers what it used to look like here. saliou: half the village used to be here. there were houses even on this very spot before it was all flooded. there are probably remains of houses on the sea bed over there. reporter: the village in south mauritania is bordered by a river on one side and the ocean on the other. there's very little infrastructure. but where are locals supposed to move to?

zeine el abidine works in the nearby diawling national park. he confirms the gravity of the situation. zeine: i spoke to an old man who told me that in the 1980's the ocean was two kilometers further back. now look at the damage that the sea has done. the government is trying to ensure that people are relocated to a safer area, but the older generation refuses and says, this is where our ancestors lived, we're not going anywhere. reporter: living from farming alone is increasingly difficult. land is in short supply due to the ground becoming oversalted. with their livelihoods destroyed, people are having to move inland. but the diawling national park, 12 kilometers away, provides alternative sources of income.

a few years ago it was home to far fewer animals. today, it's a breeding ground for over 300 species of birds, including flamingoes. crocodiles live here, too. the warthog population is flourishing because the animals are not hunted here. there's both freshwater and saltwater in the senegal river delta. nature conservation makes sense here. protecting the ecosystem also creates jobs. zeine: the goal of the park is to restore the ecosystem and fight poverty. why fight poverty in this region? because the local population does traditional work -- they harvest whatever nature provides. the local economy is based on fishing and farming. if there's no more water, there will be nothing left here.

reporter: locally caught tilapia is hung out to dry in the open air. many villages have no electricity, let alone refrigerators. fishermen sell their fish across the country and even in neighboring senegal. cheikh: in the past, people here lid from farming, too. but really, fishing makes most sense. we can make a living from fishing all year round. we benefit from the lock and the basin -- there are lots of fish here. reporter: the abundance of fish is a recent development. 30 years ago the region was left ravaged by this dam -- built in e mid-1980 to supply mauritan, senegal,ambia, a mali with freshwater. it devastated the natural environment.

zeine: the construction of the dam completely destabilized the ecosystem. it was destroyed. the natural balance was destroyed, the balance between saltwater and freshwater. that wasn't all. the freshwater was blocked, and couldn't reach the national park. reporter: years later the problem was addressed with the construction of these locks -- built with the help of the german kfw development bank and the german development agency giz. samantha: what it does is imitate ebb and flow -- salt water and freshwater are combined here, so it's a perfect habitat for fish to spawn in. it's a protected area because these are three flood basins. so it's a perfect spot for resting and breeding, not only for fish, but also for birds.

reporter: the park authority has demarcated fishing zones and makes sure the fishermen respect spawning seasons. the freshwater in the basin has helped revive the local fauna, too. lotuses have begun thriving again. local women spend two to three hours a day in the water collecting seeds from the lotus stalks. then they sort them, shell and dry them, and over a period of several weeks, turn them into couscous. mariya: after the dam was built, until last year we couldn't harvest anything. but now nature has started to recover. the lotuses have returned, and we can collect their seeds again. reporter: they harvested some 600 kilos last year -- enough to feed their families for months, and sell the excess. another successful venture made possible by the park. local craft traditions have also made a comeback. these women make jewelry they're planning to sell.

the raw materials come from the national park. samantha: these are tiny beads that they make from tree resin. and we help them extract the resin without destroying the trees. reporter: back in the delta, biologist zeine el abidine is out on the water almost every day taking a look at the nesting sites. zeine: i love these birds, they're my favorite animals. they're beautiful, and they're also proof that the environment is in good shape. if they're here, then we know there's no environmental damage. and they don't make anything dirty. i love them. reporter: the diawling national park is home to the greatest concentration of birds in west africa.

and in addition to rescuing animal habitats in the region, the conservation zone has also helped to secure human livelihoods. host: now it's time to meet the berlin globals -- people from around the world who've made the german capital their home. >> live in blin five yrs w. host: ty make bern the vibrant metropolis that it is. we tell their stories, every wednesday on our facebook page, dw global society. today, our berlin global comes from slovenia. >> don't be alarmed. people know me. i'm the famous pub crawl guy. hey, what's up? i love the t-shirt. pub crawl is basically you making sure that the people have a good time when you take them toubs and various bars. and with us, we also take you to the club at the end. so, it's like a guided tour of

the nightlife of berlin, which i know many berliners frown upon, but i think they should give it a chance at least once. if they catch you applying spray paint onto a wall, even a single time, the fine is around 7000 euros -- just for a one -- because it's considered vandalism. if they catch you putting up a poster on the wall, like this, the fine is around 70 euros because it's considered littering.

i studied media and communication science athe university of ubljana, which is something you go to study when you don't know what you want to study or what you want to do with your life. i was basically staying with my parents until i decided, i want to move to berlin. so, i wanted to become an autonous person and move out at the same time to another country. so one day i just got up and left. why are there, like, certain people who decide if you're cool enough to get into a club? what's up with that, man? i mean, isn't berlin all about being left wing and democratic? i never understood that, to be honest.

when i did a couple of those walks of shame, when they tell you you're not cool enough and you have to walk in shame because you didn't get in, i was like, ah, man, that doesn't feel so nice. and the pub crawl is the exact opposite of that. everybody's welcome. it's the anti-berghain, so everybody is welcome. come. join us. have a party. even if you're not cool, or whatever. host: and that's all for tod. don't forget to send us your comments and views. write to us at global3000@dw.com, or on facebook. see you next time.

take care. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]