Child Brides - Afghanistan

Afghanistan is one of the Islamic countries where people hold strongly tight to customs and traditions. Breaking the tradition of marrying young children, both boys and girls, is not only difficult, but near impossible in most urban districts.

According to a United Nations’ report, between 60 to 80 percent of marriages in Afghanistan are forced marriages. The report states that the reasons why girls are dragged into forced marriages include repayment of debts, to solve a dispute and to pay family expenses.

Young and scared with no hope of the future

In the rural areas of Afghanistan, girls are mostly married between ages of 7 to 11. It is really rare that a girl reaches the age of 16 and is not married. The customs, traditions and community they live in make it impossible for girls to break free from forced marriages. They do not get ask to speak for self-desire. The fathers in the families mostly decide, as the mothers do not get involved in the decisions, because they are women.

Little bride

In Afghan villages, it's considered dishonorable for families for daughters to meet and date boys. Some parents try to marry their daughters as soon as possible to avoid such a prospect. A lack of security during more than three decades of war, and the risk of kidnapping and rape, has also prompted many families to force their young daughters into marriage. And widespread poverty still compels many parents to get their daughters married to avoid the cost of caring for them.

The Afghan government has taken some steps to tackle the problem. The country has recently changed the legal age for marriage for girls from 16 to 17. Men who want to marry girls under 17 are not entitled to obtain a marriage certificate, although rights activists say many men simply do not bother with officially registering their marriages.

Child Bride's Nightmare Part 1

"Yemen is full of child brides. Roughly half of Yemeni girls are married before 18, some as young as eight." Until recently, Yemeni law set the minimum age for marriage at 15. But tribal customs and interpretations of Islam often trump the law. In practice, "Yemeni law allows girls of any age to wed, but it forbids sex with them until the indefinite time they’re 'suitable for sexual intercourse.'" In 1999, the minimum marriage age of fifteen for women was abolished; the onset of puberty, interpreted by conservatives to be at the age of nine, was set as a requirement for consummation of marriage.

Child Marriage

Child marriage usually refers to two separate social occurrences, which are practiced in some societies. The first and more widespread practice is that of marrying a young child (generally defined as below the age of fifteen) to an adult. Due to women's shorter reproductive life period (relative to men's), the practice of child marriage tends to be of young girls to fully-grown men.

The second practice is a form of arranged marriage, in which the parents of two children from different families arrange a future marriage. In this practice, the individuals who become betrothed often do not meet one another until the wedding ceremony, which occurs when they are both considered to be of a marriageable age.

Although child marriages were not seen as improper in historical context as individuals were considered to be matured at an earlier age than in the modern West an increase in the advocacy of human rights, whether as women's rights or as children's rights, has caused the traditions of child marriage to decrease greatly.

In child betrothals, a child's parents arrange a match with the parents of a child from another family (social standing, wealth and expected education all play a part), thus unilaterally determining the child's future at a young age. It is thought by adherents that physical attraction is not a suitable foundation upon which to build a marriage and a family. A separate consideration is the age at which the wedding, as opposed to the engagement, takes place.

Families are able to cement political and/or financial ties by having their children marry. The betrothal is considered a binding contract upon the families and the children. The breaking of a betrothal can have serious consequences both for the families and for the betrothed individuals themselves.

Source: Wiki

The Veiled Afghani Woman and Economics

Afghanistan economy has improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001 due largely to billions of dollars in international assistance and investments as well as remittances from Afghans in the diaspora.  However, the country remains one of the the poorest and least developed in the world and one that is highly dependent on foreign aid. Afghanistan GDP per capita, as of 2010, was $1000 and about 35% of its population live below the poverty line.

As in any country facing various hardships, the hardest hit population is the women and children. Afghani women have had to bear the severest and hardest burden of the 23 years of relentless war and gender apartheid designed to erase them from public view. Although the political and cultural position of women has improved since the fall of the Taliban, repression of women is still prevalent particularly in rural areas where women are restricted from public participation. One in every three Afghan women experiences physical, psychological or sexual violence and every 30 minutes a woman dies during childbirth. 70% - 80% of women are forced into marriages and 87% of women are illiterate because they are denied basic education. Only 30% of girls have access to education.

Afghani women are slowly building their ability to explore and achieve improved economic potential generating hope for a brighter future for them and their families. It is becoming clear that the only way to improve Afghanistan's living conditions is by empowering women.  Women are the backbones of all economies around the world. In Afghanistan women play a significant role in agriculture. Of the 80% Afghans employed in the agriculture field or similar occupations, 30% are women. However, the women earn three times less than the men even though they spend as much time working on the land as men.

"The economic empowerment of women is not a women's issue, it is a development issue. Under-investing in women's economic opportunity limits economic growth and slows down progress in poverty reduction".  This was an express observation by the World Bank's (PREM) Vice President, Danny Leipzig, in 2007 at the Berlin-based dialogue on Women's Economic Empowerment as Smart Economics: A Dialogue on Policy Options. 

Canada has stepped up and is presenting new opportunities to the vulnerable Afghani women in the form of micro-finance credit projects. The Micro-Finance Investment Support Facility (MISFA) is known as one of the world's largest micro finance programs. It is providing small loans and savings services to more that 445,000 Afghanis across 24 provinces, of which two-thirds are women. Most clients use the loans to invest in small retail businesses, in agriculture or livestock. To date more than one million loans have been given totaling US$384 million. In many cases, these opportunities have helped Afghan women acquire more self-esteem, more respect within their families and has served to mitigate domestic violence. More importantly it lifts women out of the poverty cycle.

So as the opportunities for empowerment and access to financial backing and infrastructure support continue to be realized, the debate on Afghan women and their plight, their representation, and their fight for inclusion goes on. Kabul may have been liberated from tyrannical Taliban rule, but most women in Afghanistan remain veiled. They continue to watch wearily as the war unfolds, still observers and not participants in their own destiny.

Other Sources:

Afghanistan Online

Government of Canada

Correspondent: Silent Scream