By Ziba Balkhi
Shafiqa* was only 14 years old when her father accepted a proposal from a man as old as himself for his daughter.
In exchange for “marrying” Shafiqa, the 46-year-old man offered her family some tracts of land totaling almost three acres.
“Two years ago, in December 2022, he came to propose. My husband is much older than me, but my father was more focused on wealth and money than on my future,” Shafiqa, now 16 and seven months pregnant, said.
“After just one proposal, they accepted the deal and decided to marry me off to a man who was as old as my father. They ignored my tears; my crying and pleading did not move them at all. It was as if I were just an object with no value, not their daughter.”
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Shafiqa was in the seventh grade. The ban on girls attending high school meant she was forced to remain at home.
Despite her high grades and her wish to continue to study, her father decided there was no point in pursuing an education.
“He told me, ‘Should I keep you at home and make pickles out of you? You’re grown up, you’ve reached marriageable age, while even the younger girls are already having children and becoming mothers’,” she said.
‘Making pickles’ is a derogatory term used in some parts of Afghanistan to shame girls who either marry later than their peers or who wish to delay marriage.
Recent reports from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) show that 28.7 percent of girls in Afghanistan between 2020 and 2024 were married before the age of 18, with 9.6 percent of these marriages occurring before the age of 15.
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), an American oversight body, has stated that child marriages in Afghanistan have increased by at least 35 percent, which has been linked to the ban on high school education for girls.
Alongside these factors, the economy struggled in the wake of the hasty US withdrawal, driving poverty higher.
Shafiqa sees her herself as much a victim of her family’s poverty as the Taliban decrees.
“We lived a poor life. When my husband offered my father the farmland, my father quickly accepted,” she said.
“He told me that a daughter is the family’s asset, and now that the opportunity had come, we should make use of it. He said that with the two and a half jeribs of land, our lives would be secure.”
Shafiqa said after her engagement she was sent to her husband’s home without any ceremony.
“It was in the afternoon when they brought a cleric and a few relatives, maybe no more than 20 people, to conduct the marriage. Without a wedding dress, they held the ceremony with a red velvet dress I had and then sent me to my husband’s home,” she said.
She said every time her husband approaches her, she cries and feels a sense of dread.
“I don’t love my father at all and told him not to visit me as long as I am alive. I hate my father,” she said.
“I had many dreams, but now they seem impossible to achieve. I can only see them in my dreams, not in real life.”
The Taliban has issued a decree banning forced marriages and has claimed to have prevented at least 5,000 cases of forced marriage. But multiple reports from media and human rights organizations demonstrate the opposite is the case, with forced marriages with impunity more likely under the Taliban. Some cases are even carried out by Taliban officials themselves.
Jawzjan resident Najia*, 17, was in the eighth grade when the Taliban banned her from finishing school and she was forced to marry a man against her will.
“We didn’t know this man at all. At the wedding, my cousin’s family saw me and liked me. Suitors came for me, but I was very hopeful that my family wouldn’t marry me off to this man because we didn’t know him,” Najia said.
“He’s 10 years older than me and, on top of that, he’s disabled and can’t manage my life.”
Her father married her off to her husband in exchange for 600,000 afghanis (US$8,500).
Najia even attempted a hunger strike to protest the decision.
“Suitors came three times, and one night, the whole family was watching television together. My father brought up the topic and said that the family had offered 600,000 afghanis for me,” she said.
“My father said we had accepted the deal, and two days later, they would come to for engagement. When I heard this, my hands and feet became weak. My life went dark.”
Najia was engaged in August 2023 with a wedding ceremony scheduled for spring next year.
“They say it’s destiny, but I see no destiny in it. I was still a child, and the world that was once full of simple dreams suddenly shattered.”
Najia said her older sister was also a victim of forced marriage.
Many experts believe that forced and child marriages irreparably damage girls’ lives, both physically and mentally.
The documented risks faced by victims of child marriage include young maternal and infant mortality, pregnancy complications, premature birth, uterine rupture, infertility, and severe anemia.
“Girls married under the age of 18 are at a much higher risk of pregnancy and childbirth-related mortality compared to other women,” gynecologist Mahbooba Ahmadi* said.
She said that early pregnancy can lead to a decrease in hemoglobin levels in girls under 18, which increases the risk of bleeding and death during childbirth.
Psychologists also state that forced marriage undermines mental health. Cases of increased depression, anxiety, isolation, chronic frustration and anger, suicidal tendencies, self-harm, decreased self-esteem, and problems in marital relationships are common consequences.
“Girls who are forced into marriage at a young age feel that they have lost their human dignity and freedom, which are their rights,” Balkh psychologist Shukria Karim* said.
“This feeling can lead them to severe depression. Moreover, when they are faced with responsibilities that are not suitable for their age, they experience constant fear and anxiety.
“When these girls are subjected to physical and sexual violence by their husbands, they suffer from recurring nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
A religious scholar in Afghanistan, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the issues resulting from child and forced marriages are rooted in the social culture of the Afghan people.
He said that such practices are contrary to Islamic teachings, and that the consent of both the bride and the groom is a fundamental requirement for marriage.
“In many areas, because families are economically weak or in order to pay off their debts, they force their daughters into marriage,” he said.
Note*: Names are changed due to security reasons.
