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More than one-third of Afghan girls trapped in forced marriages

She tries to hide her tears, but they flow down her cheeks. Sometimes, she gazes out the window; other times, she lowers her head and fixes her eyes on the carpet. It feels like she wants to scream, to shout out her sorrows, but is afraid. She notices the slightly open door of the room and speaks softly so her voice won’t carry beyond the doorway. She doesn’t want any members of her husband’s large family to hear her words.

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Khatema was only 10 years old when she was engaged to a 65-year-old man. Through tears and protests, she persuaded her family to delay the wedding by five years. Later, her family came to regret their decision and wanted to break off the engagement. Then Khatema’s father lost his job at a local NGO after the Taliban took power. Unemployed and desperate, he agreed for the marriage to continue in exchange for a hefty bride price.

Around one third of Afghan girls are being forced into marriage since the Taliban returned to power, according to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). In an October 2023 report, SIGAR noted that 35 percent of Afghan girls under the age of 18 were forced into marriage since 2021; for those under 15, 17 percent were forced into marriage. According to Voice of America, which cited SIGAR, 361 of the 578 cases of forced marriages documented between December 2022 and February 2023 involved underage girls.

Khatema was one of those underage brides. In April 2022, her family held her wedding in Nangarhar province and forced her to move into the home of her husband. He paid 500,000 afghani (approximately US$5,700) as a bride price. “I would cry and beg them not to marry me off to this old man, but my father said, ‘Even if you die, this man will still be your husband, and I will never let you separate from him,’” she tells Zan Times. 

Khatema had dreams of studying and becoming a journalist, but her family’s desperation, belief in patriarchal traditions, and the Taliban’s oppressive laws crushed her hopes. “Whenever I saw journalists on TV, I wished I could be like them. Maybe if schools hadn’t been closed, with the help of my teachers and the school administration, I could have escaped this marriage and pursued my dreams,” she says. 

During the long years of her engagement, Khatema clung to hope that her life would improve: “I hoped I could study and free myself from this man. I even planned to change my name from Khatema to Arzo after breaking off the engagement. My name, Khatema, was given to me to signify the end of daughters in our family, but four more daughters were born after me.”

Now living with her husband and his children, Khatema endures constant humiliation and physical abuse. Her husband, who also has two other wives, 11 children, and 13 grandchildren, routinely mistreats her. Struggling to maintain her composure during the interview, she swallows her sobs, drinks some water, and says, “I don’t want them to find out. If they do, they’ll tell my husband that I cried or complained to someone. My husband will beat me with a wire and say, ‘Don’t go crying to anyone.’”

Khatema’s suffering is not unique. Zan Times interviewed more than 17 girls aged 10 to 17 who say that their poverty-stricken families forced them into marriages with older men in exchange for large sums of money. These girls, who are from across Afghanistan, including the provinces of Laghman, Nangarhar, Khost, Kandahar, Kabul, Balkh, Bamyan, and Kunduz, unanimously expressed their dissatisfaction with these marriages. At least five of them report that they have been subjected to physical and emotional abuse by their husbands.

Anargul, a 16-year-old from Laghman province, once dreamed of becoming a doctor and helping the women in her village in Dawlat Shah district. Before the Taliban’s rule, she studied up to 11th grade and often shared her aspirations with her teachers and friends. Her conservative family and strict father crushed her dreams. “When the schools closed, I wanted to join a sewing class, but my father didn’t allow it and said, ‘You’ll stay home because you’re getting married soon,’” she recalls to Zan Times.

In early 2022, Anargul was forced to marry a 74-year-old man. Her father beat her when she resisted the marriage. “I told my father I didn’t want to marry that old man. He beat me until he was out of strength. When I pleaded with my mother, she also said, ‘Accept it; don’t bring shame on us,’” says Anargul. 

Her husband is a harsh and abusive man who berates and beats her on any pretext. “He’s old and hits me over everything,” she says. “He’d say, ‘The food isn’t tasty,’ and then beat me. During my pregnancy, he hit me multiple times. My son was born with disabilities, and the doctors said the baby was harmed while in my womb.”

Now a mother of two, Anargul sought help to escape her marriage four months ago. “I asked neighboring girls where to go and what to do to get a divorce,” she says. “Someone told my husband, and he punched me and said, ‘I’ll kill you, but I’ll never divorce you.’”

The combination of illiteracy, cultural ignorance, poverty, patriarchy, and the Taliban’s misogynistic rule has turned both society and families into prisons and torture chambers for countless Afghan women and girls.

Two months ago, Marwa, a 14-year-old from Nangarhar province, was forcibly engaged to a 60-year-old man who lives in the United States. Her family accepted 900,000 afghani (approximately US$10,500) in exchange for the engagement. Like her peers, Marwa neither accepts this union nor sees a way out: “When I told my father that if he didn’t stop the marriage, I would kill myself, he grabbed my hair, slammed my head against the wall, and beat me until he got tired. He said, ‘Don’t bring shame upon us, or I’ll kill you myself.’”

Last week, Marwa, bruised and in pain, begged one of her father’s uncles to stop the marriage. He refused, saying, “This is your father’s decision, and we must accept it. We don’t want to damage our relationship with your father.”

In January 2024, The Washington Post published a report titled “In the new Afghanistan, sell your daughter or starve.” The report detailed the lives of 118 young girls in Herat province who had been sold into marriage in exchange for money. The average price for each girl was at least US$2,000 — an amount equivalent to a year’s living expenses for a poor family in Herat.

Khatema and the girls interviewed by Zan Times know they are trapped. Their desperation is both obvious and increasing. As Khatema tells Zan Times: “If I don’t find a way out of this forced marriage, I might one day kill myself.”

Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writers. Arzo Arwin and Maryam Rahimi are the pseudonyms of journalists in Afghanistan.

Sohaila Sabri, Zarmina Mohammadi, and Humaira Jafari (all names are pseudonyms) also contributed reporting to this article.

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