Afghans marrying off young daughters to avoid forced marriages with Taliban

Kabul: Since Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, there has been a dramatic increase in early marriages of Afghan girls — a trend activists and human rights campaigners attribute to parents’ belief that securing a spouse for their girls is better than seeing them forced to marry members of the Taliban, a media report said.
Marrying their girls off also provides some sense of security: fewer mouths to feed at a time when Afghan girls have been banned from attending school and face harassment as the country deals with a humanitarian crisis and economic ruin, said the RFE/RL report.
Shukria Sherzai, a women’s rights activist in Ghor province, says the cases of forced and underage marriages have increased exponentially since the Taliban seized power.
Also Read Canadian party calls for boycott of G20 activities in India She says that many families agree to early unions in the hope of sparing them from being forced to marry Taliban members. But even if the reasoning is based on securing a better life, the effect has been devastating to the family structure, RFE/RL reported.
“Forced and underage marriages have resulted in violence and turmoil within families,” she said.
International rights watchdogs have documented similar trends.