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Mar 24 (IPS) – The writer is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, skilled with Finnish assist earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her identification is withheld for safety causes.Afghan ladies have been denied the proper to attend faculty and college for the reason that Taliban took energy in August 2021. However as if this was not tragic sufficient, many women have additionally been pressured to marry too early in life.
A mixture of poverty and the concern of women being pressured to marry the islamist fighters of the Taliban motion are the principle causes behind the rising fee of teenage marriages within the nation.
With a view to save them from the Taliban, a gaggle that violates their primary human rights, dad and mom would moderately marry off their underage daughters elsewhere.
Pressured marriage of underage ladies has been practiced in Afghanistan earlier than however it has elevated considerably for the reason that return of the Taliban to energy in 2021, twenty years after they had been ousted by the U.S troops.
The Taliban have forcefully married dozens of women, typically utilizing intimidation, coercion, and dying threats. Additionally, the covid pandemic, closing of colleges, the disappearance of employment alternatives for girls and the tough financial state of affairs has pressured households to marry off their teenage daughters with a view to cope. The dowry acquired from the wedding helps to feed the remainder of the household for a while.
In line with the UN Childrens’ Fund UNICEF, ladies are bought into marriage whilst infants. UNICEF estimates that 28 per cent of women are pressured into marriage earlier than they flip 18.
“I’ve even seen ladies married off on the age of 14 in one of many northern provinces”, says Zainab (title modified), a girl activist. She is deeply involved about ladies marrying under-age, saying it’s violence towards teenage ladies.
The Taliban have resorted to kidnapping ladies and threatening them with pressured marriage. In addition to, the Taliban collect info on the variety of single ladies in a household and if there are any, they need them for marriage.
They ship varieties to be stuffed out within the mosques, significantly requesting for info on ladies aged between 13 and 18, in keeping with Zainab. Households would subsequently quit their daughters to relations for marriage moderately than allow them to fall into the palms of strangers.
In Kabul and in different provinces, members of Taliban have even threatened to kill members of the family of under-age ladies who refuse to offer their daughters up for marriage and have pressured teenage ladies to marry males with two or three wives. Younger and educated ladies have had haunting expertise from such instances.
“My buddy is 15 years”, narrates Maria (title modified), “a Taliban commander of over 50 years, and already married to 2 wives got here and proposed to her. She turned him down. The woman’s household needed to flee within the night time to a hiding place with out even taking their belongings”.
In one other case, Marwa (title modified) in Kabul stated a member of the Taliban had despatched her first spouse to her household to suggest to a tenth grade woman, threatening to kill their son in the event that they refuse to surrender their daughter for marriage. The teenage woman’s father had no possibility however at hand her over. She was 30 years youthful than the person.
This story was produced by Studying Collectively, a voluntary community of Finnish feminine journalists. The writer is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, skilled with Finnish assist earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her identification is withheld for safety causes.
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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