'Here is your bride... please don't beat her': As Taliban recognises child marriage, Afghans 'marry off' girls and BABIES - and can only hope they are not raped before they even hit puberty
Parwana Malik was just nine years old when her father sold her as a bride to a man in his 50s, desperate to find enough money to feed his family.
As tears streamed down his face, Abdul Malik pleaded with the groom to show mercy to his little girl.
‘This is your bride. Please take care of her. You are responsible now, please don’t beat her,’ he said.
Parwana is one of the millions of girls in poverty-stricken Afghanistan forced into under-age marriage, where desperate families have resorted to selling even their newborn babies just to survive.
In late 2021, UN children's agency Unicef said there were credible reports of families offering daughters as young as 20 days old for future marriage in return for a dowry.
The law states that a marriage arranged with a child is legally valid provided the spouse is socially compatible and the dowry is appropriate, and that the child may later seek annulment after reaching puberty, but only through a court order.
The document also adds that the silence of a 'virgin girl' is interpreted as consent to marriage, whereas the same silence from a male or previously married woman is not.
And in Afghanistan, where women and girls are unlikely to speak out for fear of punishment, the new legislation risks leaving many girls trapped.
In February of this year, the Taliban introduced a new penal code creating a caste system which puts women on the same level as 'slaves'.
As part of the new law, husbands are permitted to beat their wives as long as there is no serious bodily harm.
Article 34 of the code states that a woman who repeatedly goes to her father's house or that of other relatives without the permission of her husband and 'does not return home despite her husband's request' faces three months in prison.
Her family and relatives would also face punishment.
While girls remain the disproportionate targets of this exploitation, young boys have also fallen victim to the brutalities of the Taliban government, with many sexually exploited by older men and turned into sex slaves for the elite.
Under the barbaric tradition of the 'Bacha Bazi', young boys and adolescents are adorned in makeup, dressed in brightly coloured women's clothing and sent before groups of powerful men to dance and entertain.
A report released in November 2024 detailed how boys remain at high risk of commercial sexual exploitation through Bacha Bazi and 'are frequently underreported due to stigma and fear, particularly when perpetrators are police'.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-1...berty.html
Parwana Malik was just nine years old when her father sold her as a bride to a man in his 50s, desperate to find enough money to feed his family.
As tears streamed down his face, Abdul Malik pleaded with the groom to show mercy to his little girl.
‘This is your bride. Please take care of her. You are responsible now, please don’t beat her,’ he said.
Parwana is one of the millions of girls in poverty-stricken Afghanistan forced into under-age marriage, where desperate families have resorted to selling even their newborn babies just to survive.
In late 2021, UN children's agency Unicef said there were credible reports of families offering daughters as young as 20 days old for future marriage in return for a dowry.
The law states that a marriage arranged with a child is legally valid provided the spouse is socially compatible and the dowry is appropriate, and that the child may later seek annulment after reaching puberty, but only through a court order.
The document also adds that the silence of a 'virgin girl' is interpreted as consent to marriage, whereas the same silence from a male or previously married woman is not.
And in Afghanistan, where women and girls are unlikely to speak out for fear of punishment, the new legislation risks leaving many girls trapped.
In February of this year, the Taliban introduced a new penal code creating a caste system which puts women on the same level as 'slaves'.
As part of the new law, husbands are permitted to beat their wives as long as there is no serious bodily harm.
Article 34 of the code states that a woman who repeatedly goes to her father's house or that of other relatives without the permission of her husband and 'does not return home despite her husband's request' faces three months in prison.
Her family and relatives would also face punishment.
While girls remain the disproportionate targets of this exploitation, young boys have also fallen victim to the brutalities of the Taliban government, with many sexually exploited by older men and turned into sex slaves for the elite.
Under the barbaric tradition of the 'Bacha Bazi', young boys and adolescents are adorned in makeup, dressed in brightly coloured women's clothing and sent before groups of powerful men to dance and entertain.
A report released in November 2024 detailed how boys remain at high risk of commercial sexual exploitation through Bacha Bazi and 'are frequently underreported due to stigma and fear, particularly when perpetrators are police'.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-1...berty.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
