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Mar 24 (IPS) – The creator is an Afghanistan-based feminine journalist, skilled with Finnish assist earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her identification is withheld for safety causes.Afghan women have been denied the proper to attend college and college for the reason that Taliban took energy in August 2021. However as if this was not tragic sufficient, many ladies have additionally been compelled to marry too early in life.
A mix of poverty and the worry of women being compelled to marry the islamist fighters of the Taliban motion are the primary causes behind the rising charge of teenage marriages within the nation.
With a purpose to save them from the Taliban, a gaggle that violates their primary human rights, dad and mom would quite marry off their underage daughters elsewhere.
Compelled marriage of underage women 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 loss of life threats. Additionally, the covid pandemic, closing of faculties, the disappearance of employment alternatives for ladies and the tough financial state of affairs has compelled households to marry off their teenage daughters with the intention to cope. The dowry acquired from the wedding helps to feed the remainder of the household for a while.
Based on the UN Childrens’ Fund UNICEF, women are bought into marriage at the same time as infants. UNICEF estimates that 28 per cent of women are compelled 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 (identify 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 compelled 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 stuffed out within the mosques, significantly requesting for data on women aged between 13 and 18, in response to Zainab. Households would subsequently quit their daughters to kin for marriage quite than allow them to fall into the palms of strangers.
In Kabul and in different provinces, members of Taliban have even threatened to kill relations of under-age women who refuse to provide their daughters up for marriage and have compelled teenage women to marry males with two or three wives. Younger and educated women have had haunting expertise from such circumstances.
“My good friend is 15 years”, narrates Maria (identify 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 (identify modified) in Kabul mentioned 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, skilled with Finnish assist earlier than the Taliban take-over. Her identification is withheld for safety causes.
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedAuthentic supply: Inter Press Service
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