[ad_1]
Mar 24 (IPS) – The creator is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, educated with Finnish help earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her id is withheld for safety causes.Afghan women have been denied the best to attend faculty and college because the Taliban took energy in August 2021. However as if this was not tragic sufficient, many ladies have additionally been pressured to marry too early in life.
A mix of poverty and the worry of ladies being pressured to marry the islamist fighters of the Taliban motion are the primary causes behind the growing price of teenage marriages within the nation.
In an effort to save them from the Taliban, a bunch that violates their fundamental human rights, mother and father would relatively marry off their underage daughters elsewhere.
Compelled marriage of underage women has been practiced in Afghanistan earlier than nevertheless it has elevated considerably because the return of the Taliban to energy in 2021, twenty years after they have been ousted by the U.S troops.
The Taliban have forcefully married dozens of ladies, typically utilizing intimidation, coercion, and demise threats. Additionally, the covid pandemic, closing of colleges, the disappearance of employment alternatives for ladies and the cruel financial scenario has pressured households to marry off their teenage daughters with a purpose to cope. The dowry acquired from the wedding helps to feed the remainder of the household for a while.
In accordance with the UN Childrens’ Fund UNICEF, women are bought into marriage whilst infants. UNICEF estimates that 28 per cent of ladies are pressured into marriage earlier than they flip 18.
“I’ve even seen women 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 women marrying under-age, saying it’s violence towards teenage women.
The Taliban have resorted to kidnapping women and threatening them with pressured marriage. Moreover, the Taliban collect data on the variety of single women in a household and if there are any, they need them for marriage.
They ship varieties to be crammed out within the mosques, significantly requesting for data on women aged between 13 and 18, in response to Zainab. Households would due to this fact quit their daughters to family members for marriage relatively than allow them to fall into the fingers of strangers.
In Kabul and in different provinces, members of Taliban have even threatened to kill members of the family of under-age women who refuse to offer their daughters up for marriage and have pressured teenage women to marry males with two or three wives. Younger and educated women have had haunting expertise from such instances.
“My good friend 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 lady’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 lady, threatening to kill their son in the event that they refuse to surrender their daughter for marriage. The teenage lady’s father had no possibility however handy 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 creator is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, educated with Finnish help earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her id is withheld for safety causes.
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
[ad_2]
