In many cultures around the world, marriages are arranged between the families of the bride and the groom.

But in some cases, very young girls are forced into marriage, crossing the line into the more sinister world of human trafficking.

Laws may exist on the books to prevent girls from being child brides, but those laws are often not enforced. Arwa Damon has this story from Afghanistan.

By Justine Lang and Robyn Curnow, CNN

KwaCele, South Africa (CNN) - The landscape of the rural Eastern Cape in South Africa has a haunting beauty. A myriad of round turquoise huts scatter across the land in a series of endless villages.

Yet these villages are also home to a terrible and devastating traditional practice that destroys children's lives and tears families apart.

In these villages, girls as young as 12 are kidnapped by older men and forced to 'marry.' It is accepted as part of the Xhosa people's culture. It has continued unabated for decades.

Ukuthwala, which translates as 'to pick up' or 'to take,' is used to justify the abduction of girls. In many cases the parents have given their consent in exchange for a bride price.

But a concerted campaign to educate these isolated communities of the illegality of under-aged sex and abduction appears to be paying off.

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Two Freedom Project iReport videos have been nominated for the annual iReport awards.

South Korean teacher Sunny Yang pledged to "Take a stand against slavery" as part of CNN's Freedom Project and vowed to get her students involved in the cause.

She used a stop-motion drawing to show the difference that we can make in the lives of people living in slavery.

And iReporter Renee Hong created this video to draw attention to the problem of human trafficking. The video uses stop-motion photography and statistics to educate viewers in an entertaining way.

Check out all the iReport nominees here including the Freedom Project stories in the compelling images category

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) – Twenty-one-year-old Ramila Syangden weeps uncontrollably as she clutches her 10-month-old baby. She sits and watches as the pyre where her husband’s body will be cremated is set alight in the open Nepalese air.

Syangden never considered one of the potential consequences of her husband’s decision to work abroad. Now she can’t ignore it.

Hours before the Buddhist cremation ceremony she watched the coffin, with her husband’s body inside, arrive on a flight from Saudi Arabia where he had worked.

The paperwork says the 36-year old committed suicide there. Not a single person gathered for the cremation ceremony believes it.

“I don’t think so. He said he would go abroad, see the place, earn as much as he could for the children and come back. I think somebody killed him,“ his wife said.

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Editor’s Note: On CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," correspondent Deborah Feyerick reported on controversy surrounding the nationwide classified-advertising website Backpage.com. While working on the broad problem of sex trafficking, she and producer Sheila Steffen became aware of the website's adult section and how prosecutors say it's being used by some pimps to peddle girls online.

By Deborah Feyerick and Sheila Steffen, CNN

Go to Backpage.com, choose any city in any state, then click on the adult section of the nationwide classified ads website.

Young women wearing almost nothing pose provocatively. One of the first advertisements I open shows a girl in lacy black underwear. Her eyes are downcast, and she appears much younger than 19, the age stated in her ad.

No one checks whether it's true - not the ages or the identities of these young women. Someone else is clearly taking the picture. The pose appears unnatural, forced.

The text next to her photo reads, "Choke me. Spank me. Pull my hair. Do Whatever You Want...I don't Care - 19." The young woman promises "a time you will NEVER forget."

It's hard to know whether this alleged 19-year-old is doing this because she wants to or because she's being coerced. That's another thing the website doesn't check.

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Teenagers who once worked in India’s sex trade showed how dance is helping them leave their previous lives behind.

Five girls performed for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to India.

They are part of Kolkata Sanved, a dance therapy movement founded in 2004 by Sohini Chakraborty, a dance sociologist and dance activist. It provides an alternative approach to therapy and healing for victims of violence and trafficking.

The 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, produced by the State Department, said: “India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so."

Backpage.com, a small ads website, is not backing away from a small but profitable corner of the internet that is accused of being a marketplace for pimps to peddle prostitution and exploit young women.

The company says there’s nothing illegal about it, even though 51 attorneys general want to shut it down.

Watch Liz McDougall, from Village Voice Media, defend Backpage.com

But New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and California's Attorney General Kamala Harris argue Backpage is a marketplace for human trafficking.

Chocolate maker Ferrero has pledged to eradicate slavery from farms where it sources its cocoa by 2020, as part of a growing movement by the multi-billion dollar industry to clean up its supply chains.

The Italian company, which produces Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Nutella spread and Kinder eggs, follows Nestle and Hershey as the third major chocolate manufacturer to announce new anti-slavery moves since September.

It says it will eradicate child labor and forced adult labor from cocoa plantations it uses by 2020, verified by “independent and credible” third parties. Also, it says it will publish a more detailed progress report this summer and promises improved communication to customers.

Up to 75% of the world’s cocoa beans are grown in small farms in West Africa. In the Ivory Coast alone, there are an estimated 200,000 children working the fields, many against their will, to create chocolate enjoyed around the world. Many of the children don’t even know what chocolate is. FULL POST

By Ryan Cooper, CNN

(Jupiter, Florida and Scottsdale, Arizona) - A growing number of Major League Baseball players are coming together to make every pitch, home run and strikeout count in the fight against child trafficking.

The players are pledging to donate money for each of their on-field achievements this season to the Free 2 Play campaign, a platform for the California-based Not For Sale non-profit group.

"A lot of Americans are shocked to hear that there are 30 million people living in slavery today, and [many] of those are children," Dave Batstone, Not For Sale's co-founder, said. "So we decided to create a program that not just releases a child from slavery, but provides them a new future."

Jeremy Affeldt, a relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, has been one of the most vocal athletes raising money and awareness for Not For Sale. Last season, he pledged $250 for every strikeout he pitched.

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By Mimi Chakarova, Special to CNN

For the past decade, photographer-filmmaker Mimi Chakarova has examined conflict, corruption and the sex trade. Her film "The Price of Sex," a feature-length documentary made over seven years on trafficking and corruption, premiered in 2011. She was awarded the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York. It will air in the U.S. on The Documentary Channel on April 11 at 4.30p0.m. ET

She was wearing a polka dot skirt and her favorite pink flip-flops the day she left her village in Albania. Her mom called out her name before she got into her boyfriend's red Mitsubishi. She didn't turn to wave goodbye. She was 12 and angry. FULL POST