New family law regulation that sets out rules for marriages involving minors has been passed in Afghanistan, where children aged nine are legally allowed to wed adults
The Taliban has officially recognised child marriages with a number of harrowing guidelines set out under its new family regulations.
Months after Afghanistan ‘legalised’ domestic violence in a terrifying crackdown on women’s rights, the acceptance of minors marrying male adults has also been passed following a 31-page article regulation called ‘Principles of Separation Between Spouses’.
In it, militant extremist officials detail the union of children and also offer specific guidelines governing ‘virgin girls’. It also features sections on breastfeeding, forced separation, apostasy, adultery and missing husbands. The disturbing document has been reported by Afghan outlet Amu TV.
They claim that a female child is able to marry any adult, but they may later seek annulment after “reaching puberty” – if a court order is obtained. It also states a child’s marriage is to be arranged by relatives other than their father or grandfather. It is legally valid providing the spouse is “socially compatible and the dowry is appropriate”.
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The Taliban now warn that the sick marriages may become invalid if guardians are considered abusive, mentally unfit or morally corrupt. Heartbreakingly, the document states that the silence of a ‘virgin girl’ can be interpreted as their consent to wed.
There is no longer a official minimum marriage age in Afghanistan, with Taliban forces rolling back the age limit of 16 previously established after the 2001 Western invasion.
The terrorist organisation, who retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, did, however, take action against a twisted 45-year-old man who married a six-year-old girl, in an act so abhorrent even they condemned it. They captured the pervert and then issued a grim order – the man has to wait until the child turns nine before he can take her home.
According to statistics given by the organisation Girls Not Brides, 28.7 per cent of Afghan girls marry before the age of 18, while 9.6 per cent marry before they turn 15. A United Nations report published last year showed systematic oppression has sparked an alarming 25 per cent rise in child and forced marriages.
Under oppressive Taliban rule, a girl’s ‘marriageable age’ is decided by Islamic law interpretation, with the Hanafi jurisprudence determining puberty to be the “threshold for readiness”. The girl’s own choice does not come into it.
Devastatingly, this is an issue which is all too prevalent in a country where women have virtually been removed from public life, while struggling families are often forced to sell their own daughters to keep food on the table.
In a interview with The Afghan Times last year, an activist who lives in a rural village shared: “There are many families in our village who have given away their daughters for money. No one helps them. People are desperate.”
As detailed in the publication’s report, this practice, which has surged since the Taliban retook power, is known as ‘walwar’ and involves girls being exchanged for cash based on factors such as looks, health and education level.
Women in Afghanistan are forbidden from speaking in public or even showing their faces outside of the family home. Forced to wear full-body coverings, these women are banned from places where they may once have met with friends and opened up about any difficulties, including gyms, female-only public baths, and even beauty salons.
