'End Child Marriage', new climb on Punta Cusidore in Sardinia by Nasim Eshqi, Sina Heidari

Professional alpinist and activist Nasim Eshqi from Iran, together with her partner Sina Heidari, has added a 13-pitch route to Punta Cusidore in Sardinia. Located on the mountain's north face, the new climb tackles an independent line to the left of Cuore di Pietra (Edoardo Asturaro, Cecilia Marchi, Maurizio Oviglia 1992).

The route was climbed making best use of short dry spells on 6 days spread out over a period of 2 weeks, and was established ground-up to the large central ledge system. Due to loose rocks the pair decided to abseil from above to remove unstable blocks and clean the cracks from vegetation, before continuing ground-up once again. All belays are equipped with two bolts and a maillon rapide, and some bolts can be found on the pitches where protecting with cams and nuts proved too dangerous.

The new route has been called End Child Marriage and, once again, Eshqi has given voice to global struggles through the language of the mountains. She explained “These girls are our future mothers. We need to end child marriage to have healthy mothers for a healthy society."

End Child Marriage is the third chapter of Eshqi's ongoing project When Mountains Speak, which as mentioned uses climbing as a platform to amplify human rights issues, with a focus on women’s rights. The previous routes in the project include Rise Up for Human Rights in the Mont Blanc massif and Woman, Life, Freedom in the Italian Dolomites.