“It’s absolutely cataclysmic,” said Heather Barr, associate director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. “We don’t have months or weeks to stem this emergency … we are in the emergency already.”
The problem is particularly acute for
Afghan girls, who have stayed home and watched their brothers return to secondary school since
the Taliban takeover. The Taliban said it is working on a plan to allow girls to return too, but have not said when that could happen or what conditions may be imposed.
The uncertainty
combined with
rising poverty has pushed many girls into the marriage market.
“As long as a girl is in school, her family is invested in her future,” said Barr, from Human Rights Watch. “As soon as a girl falls out of education, then suddenly it becomes much more likely that she’s going to be married off.”
And once a girl is sold as a bride, her chances of continuing an education or pursuing an independent path are close to zero.
Instead, she faces a much darker future. Without access to contraception or reproductive health services, nearly 10% of Afghan girls aged 15 to 19 give birth every year, according to the
UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
Many are too young to be able to consent to sex and face complications in childbirth due to their underdeveloped bodies — pregnancy-related mortality rates for girls aged 15 to 19 are more than double the rate for women aged 20 to 24, according to UNFPA.
‘I don’t want to leave my parents’
Magul, a 10-year-old girl in neighboring Ghor province, cries every day as she prepares to be sold to a 70-year-old man to settle her family’s debts. Her parents had borrowed 200,000 Afghanis ($2,200) from a neighbor in their village — but without a job or savings, they have no way of returning the money.
The buyer had dragged Magul’s father, Ibrahim, to a Taliban prison and threatened to have him jailed for failing to repay his debt. Ibrahim, who only goes by one name, said he promised the buyer he would pay in a month. But now time is up.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ibrahim said. “Even if I don’t give him my daughters, he will take them.”
Magul’s mother, Gul Afroz, feels just as helpless. “I’m praying to God these bad days pass,” she said.
Like Qorban, the buyer claimed he would not mistreat Magul and that she would simply help with cooking and cleaning at his home. But the reassurances ring hollow in the face of his threats against Magul’s family.
“I really don’t want him. If they make me go, I will kill myself,” Magul said, sobbing as she sat on the floor of her home. “I don’t want to leave my parents.”
It’s a similar situation for a nine-member family in Ghor province that is selling two daughters aged 4 and 9. The father has no job, like most in the displacement camp — but he faces even tougher odds with a disability.
He is prepared to sell the girls for 100,000 Afghanis (about $1,100) each. Zaiton, the 4-year-old, with wispy bangs and large brown eyes, said she knows why this is happening: “Because we are a poor family and we don’t have food to eat.”
Their grandmother, Rokhshana, is distraught.
“If we have food and there is someone to help us, we would never do this,” Rokhshana said through tears. “We don’t have any choice.”