Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 13, 2024

Amina was in the seventh grade when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Shortly after their takeover, the militants banned teenage girls from attending school, dashing the 14-year-old’s dreams of completing her education.

Months later, Amina’s family in the central province of Maidan Wardak forced her to marry a local 37-year-old man.

Amina, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said she was “traumatized and sick” when she was told of her family’s plans.

“My family faced economic ruin after the Taliban takeover,” Amina, now 16, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

Amina’s husband paid a “walwar” — a premarital fee given to the bride-to-be’s parents — that amounted to around $12,000. Walwar payments are common in Afghanistan and provide an incentive for parents to marry off their daughters at a young age.

Amina is among the thousands of underage girls who have been forced into marriage since the fall of the Western-backed Afghan government in August 2021.

Activists say the Taliban’s education ban has contributed to the surge in early and child marriages. A devastating humanitarian crisis and the lack of educational and professional prospects for women have fueled the sharp uptick, they say.

‘I Had No Choice’

Mursal was 15 years old when her family forced her into an engagement with an older man.

“I had no choice because my family told me that in the absence of education, my only option was to get married,” said Mursal, now 17.

Mursal, whose name has also been changed to protect her identity, said her dream was to become a doctor.

For some families, marrying their girls off provides some sense of security: fewer mouths to feed at a time when the country is dealing with a humanitarian crisis and economic ruin.

Some parents have also married off their adolescent daughters to avoid forced marriages to Taliban fighters.

But activists say the Taliban’s September 2021 decision to ban millions of girls above the sixth grade from attending school has also helped fuel the spike in child marriages.

June 13 marks 1,000 days since the Taliban announced its ban, a move that triggered international condemnation and protests inside Afghanistan.

During its nearly three years in power, the militant group has severely curtailed women and girls’ appearances, freedom of movement, and right to work and study.

‘Very Dangerous’

Child marriages have increased by around 25 percent since the Taliban takeover, according to UN Women, the United Nations agency for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

“This is terrible and very dangerous for the future of Afghanistan,” Shaharzad Akbar, an Afghan rights campaigner who headed the former Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, told Radio Azadi.

Akbar, who now runs the independent advocacy organization Rawadari, said their research has established the potentially devastating impacts of the Taliban’s education ban on teenage girls.

“In the future, we won’t have female university students,” she said. “And there will be no female health-care workers or other [educated female] workers.”

Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting by Firuza Azizi of RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi

Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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