he married a six-year-old girl, officials said Friday, in the latest
case highlighting the scourge of child marriages in the war-battered
country.
Mohammad Karim, said to be aged around 60, was held in central Ghor
province as he claimed her parents gave him the girl as a “religious
offering”, officials said.
But they cited the family of the girl, believed to be in shock, as
saying that she was abducted from western Herat province, bordering
Iran.
“This girl does not speak, but repeats only one thing: ‘I am afraid
of this man’,” said Masoom Anwari, head of the women affairs department
in Ghor.
The girl is currently in a woman’s shelter in Ghor and her parents
are on their way to the province to collect her, the local governor’s
office said.
“Karim has been jailed and our investigation is ongoing,” said Abdul Hai Khatibi, the governor’s spokesman.
The arrest comes just days after a 14-year-old pregnant girl was
burned to death in Ghor, in a case that sparked shock waves in
Afghanistan.
The family of that girl, Zahra, said she was tortured and set alight
by her husband’s family. But relatives of the teenager’s husband
insisted her death was by self-immolation.
The incidents underscore rising incidents of child marriages in Afghanistan.
“In some regions because of insecurity and poverty the families marry
off their daughters at a very early age to get rid of them,” Sima
Samar, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, told
reporters this month.
Afghan civil law sets the legal age of marriage at 16 for girls, yet
15 percent of Afghan women under 50 were married before their 15th
birthday and almost half were married before the age of 18, according to
Save the Children.
“So many children who are married off at a young age are deprived of
their right to education, safety and the ability to make choices about
their future,” the international charity said this month.
“This is such a fundamental breach of a child’s basic rights.”
The latest case comes after a young woman was stoned to death in Ghor last November after being accused of adultery.
And in March last year a woman named Farkhunda was savagely beaten
and set ablaze in central Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a
Koran.
The mob killing triggered angry nationwide protests and drew global attention to the endemic violence facing Afghan women.