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A 45-year-old man has married a six-year-old girl in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. US-based Afghan outlet Amu.tv reported that the Taliban were “horrified” by the image and stopped the man from taking the child home. Instead, they reportedly told him she could be taken to her husband’s home at age nine.
The case has sparked outrage, but so far, the marriage stands.
According to Hasht-e Subh Daily, the man, who already has two wives, paid the girl’s family money in exchange for her. The ceremony took place in the Marjah district, where the child’s father and the groom were later arrested. However, neither man has been charged.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban have overseen a surge in early and forced marriages. Child marriage in Afghanistan, already widespread, has grown more severe under the Taliban’s ban on female education and employment.
UN Women reported last year that these restrictions caused a 25 per cent increase in child marriages and a 45 per cent rise in childbearing across the country. UNICEF notes that Afghanistan has one of the highest numbers of child brides globally.
The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban figures, accusing them of crimes against humanity for their treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan.
The court said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were responsible for the persecution of women and girls since the Taliban took power.
The Taliban rejected the move, saying it does not recognise the ICC. It called the warrants “a clear act of hostility” and “an insult to the beliefs of Muslims around the world.”
However, rights advocates warn child marriage leads to a lifetime of harm: early pregnancies, physical and sexual abuse, depression, and social isolation. Girls often have no say in who they marry or when. Many are promised at birth to male cousins through a practice known as ‘naming,’ which treats them as family property. These arrangements are considered final and cannot be broken.
In some areas, girls are traded for walwar – a bride price paid to her family, often based on her appearance, health, and education level. Mahbob, a community activist from a rural village, told The Afghan Times, “There are many families in our village who have given away their daughters for money. No one helps them. People are desperate.”
Walwar is not the only way girls are exchanged. Under the practice of baad, families involved in blood feuds give girls to their enemies to settle disputes. Once given, a girl becomes the honour (namus) of her husband’s family. If widowed, she may be forcibly remarried to another male relative of her late husband.
Amiri, a 50-year-old woman from Uruzgan, told The Afghan Times she married off her 14-year-old daughter to a 27-year-old man for 300,000 Afghanis. “I knew she was too young,” she said. “But we had nothing at home. I used the money to feed the rest of my family.”
There is currently no codified legal minimum age for girls to marry in Afghanistan. The Taliban-led regime has not reinstated the previous civil code, which set the legal age at 16 for girls. Instead, marriage is determined by interpretations of Islamic law. In the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, a girl is eligible for marriage once she reaches puberty.
The Taliban’s war on women and girls extends far beyond marriage. Girls have been banned from secondary schools, universities, parks, gyms, and public baths. Women are barred from most jobs, forbidden from traveling without a male guardian, and ordered to cover their faces in public. Last year, the Taliban defended these policies by claiming a woman “loses her value” if her face is seen by men.
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