Under the title "It Is Child Rape: Afghan Minors Paying the Price of Collapse and Famine," Al-Hurra reported that more than three months into Taliban rule, the economic collapse in Afghanistan has driven impoverished families to "marry off underage girls to benefit from dowries," according to a report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation from the Afghan capital, Kabul. Last Monday, a senior official from the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed outrage over a reality where sanctions and the freezing of aid have cut essential services to the population in Afghanistan, urging donors to seek innovative ways to prevent a "massive humanitarian crisis" from unfolding.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke with Fazal, a brick kiln worker who is currently unemployed and drowning in debt. He stated that the country's collapsing economy has left him with the difficult choice of either marrying off his young daughters or risking his family's death by starvation. Last month, Fazal received a dowry of $3,000 after marrying off his two daughters, aged 13 and 15, to two men. He mentioned that if his money runs out, he might have to marry off his seven-year-old daughter.
He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, "I had no other way to feed my family and pay off my debts. What else could I have done? I sincerely hope I do not have to marry off my youngest daughter." The United Nations is striving to avert famine in Afghanistan while the country’s economy appears on the brink of collapse, which could trigger a refugee crisis. Women's rights activists report that child marriage has increased in parallel with the rising poverty since the Taliban took power 100 days ago, on August 15, with reports of impoverished parents promising others to marry their children in the future in exchange for dowries.
Activists expect the rate of child marriage, which was prevalent even before the Taliban's return, to double in the coming months. Prominent Afghan women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh said, "My heart stops when I hear these stories... It is not a marriage. It is child rape." Frogh hears such stories daily, often concerning girls under the age of ten, while it remains unclear whether the young girls will be forced to engage in sexual relations before reaching puberty. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported reliable accounts of families subjecting girls as young as 20 days old to future marriage arrangements for dowries.
UN agencies have stated that Afghanistan, afflicted by drought and economic collapse, is set to experience the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. With the arrival of winter, agencies report that millions are on the brink of famine, with 97% of families expected to fall below the poverty line by mid-2022. Humanitarian workers note that UN sanctions and unilateral sanctions against the Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in August, have created confusion and hesitation among donors, despite some efforts to grant licenses to facilitate aid flow as food prices rise sharply while millions are unemployed or have not received their salaries.
