Thursday, July 28, 2022

Afghan Conversation 38: Child Marriages

This is the most recent in a series of conversations I have been having over the past year with an Afghan friend about life under the Taliban. I am protecting his identity for his safety.

Dear David:

Child marriages are widespread in Afghanistan. For example, my mother married at thirteen and my sister at sixteen. Approximately 57 percent of girls in our country are married before the age of 16, according to the United Nations. The main causes of child marriages are the lack of prohibition in Islamic Law, endemic poverty, and outright sexism. 

Most Muslims here do not consider child marriages as a crime because they believe they are following in the footsteps of the prophet Mohammad, who married a girl named Aiesha when she was 6 years old and had sex with her when she was 9 years old.  (Sahih Al Bokhari, Hadith 5158). In addition, Ali, the first Imam of the Shia branch of Islam, married a girl named Fatima when she was 10 years old (Hawza). No one can find any references in Islamic law banning child marriages. 

Afghan culture has always favored men, giving them complete authority over women. In Helmand, where I grew up, when a father selects a husband for her daughter, it is rare that he asks for her permission. Most girls do not dare to oppose their father’s choice. Afghans believe a man can take a wife for his son whenever he wants and give away his daughter to a husband whenever he wants. 

Some Afghans prefer to give their daughter to a wealthy husband when she is a child rather than waiting for an ordinary husband when she is mature. Some families sell their daughters to acquire food and clothes for the rest of the family. The practice of selling child brides, or at least arranging the marriages of prepubescent girls to older men, has been commonplace for a long time. 

Women have always been vulnerable in Afghanistan, but now the situation is intolerable. The extremely weak economy combined with the draconian rule of the Taliban work against women’s rights and violate their freedoms. 

As Amnesty International reports, "Since they took control of the country in August 2021, the Taliban have violated women’s and girls’ rights to education, work, and free movement; decimated the system of protection and support for those fleeing domestic violence; detained women and girls for minor violations of discriminatory rules; and contributed to a surge in the rates of child, early and forced marriage in Afghanistan."

Most of the educated women I know here have a dream to leave the country by any means, but for almost every one of them, I fear that that will be impossible.

(Note to readers: I continue to publish this correspondence with my friend in the hope that the plight of the Afghan people will get greater attention in the U.S. and Europe. It was the decision by the U.S. to withdraw its forces from the country in August 2021 that led to the Taliban takeover.)

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