The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates than there are 749,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in Afghanistan. Young girls are subjected to forced child marriage throughout the country. Although the law sets the minimum age for marriage at 18 for males and 16 for females, this is not regularly observed or enforced. Rather, tradition and customary laws frame marriage-related practices, often allowing marriage without the consent of both parties. The issue of forced marriage is particularly widespread in provincial and rural areas of the country.
Bibi Aisha was forced to marry a member of the Taliban to settle someone else’s debt. She was subjected to extreme physical violence.
I was a woman who was exchanged for someone else’s’ wrong doing. My father in law and my husband, they were all with the Taliban. My father in law took me out of the house to a mountain. I thought they would kill me or behead me. I did not think he would cut my nose and my ears.
The blood came over my eyes, I didn’t know where the blood was coming from.
Narratives produced and provided by Too Young to Wed
