Banned under law, yet girls are given in baad or forced marriage to settle feuds. The consequences are no one’s concern.
Zahra from Ghor province was only 11 when she was forced into a marriage in her stepmother’s family.
Banned under law, yet girls are given in baad or forced marriage to settle feuds. The consequences are no one’s concern.
Zahra from Ghor province was only 11 when she was forced into a marriage in her stepmother’s family. Her mother was disabled, and her father Muhammad Azam Yusufi married again. He paid 600,000 Afs as dowry for his second wife. The family, however, asked for another 600,000 Afs (8,710 USD). Unable to pay, he agreed to give his two daughters including Zahra in “baad”, a custom that is outlawed but flourishes.
The girl, not yet a teenager, was married to her stepmother’s nephew. It was a violent marriage from the start. Both her husband and his family abused her, until one day, when she was 14, they murdered her.
Her father says he has gone to police in Ghor and the provincial council but his complaints have not been heard. He claims that his son-in-law’s family is powerful, and government institutions biased.
Abdul Khaleq Saghari, a resident of Ghor says, “This girl (Zahra) was beaten many times by the family of her husband; once she was assaulted with a knife. Eventually she was burnt in the kitchen oven.”
On the fateful day, according to Saghari, the family told Zahra to accompany them to the fields to harvest poppy, but she refused because she was allergic to the plant. The family viciously beat her up that she fell unconscious. Scared they may have caused fatal injuries, they put her in the oven, hoping to pass it off as burn injuries. She was taken to Kabul’s Istiqlal Hospital, but passed away two hours later.
According to Zahra’s father, his daughter was four-months pregnant at the time.
Zahra’s father and mother have appealed for justice for their daughter. The government must arrest and punish the guilty, they say. Meanwhile, her husband’s family claims she fell into the oven by mistake.
Calls for justice
Civil society activists have urged a fair probe in the case.
Wida Saghari, an activist in Kabul, says Zahra’s case has been taken up by protestors at a sit-in against baad in Kabul. That protest was launched in April by a young man from Paktia, Khan Wali Adel, whose sisters were given in baad a few years ago and his father has threatened to take 10 girls in compensation from another tribe for the death of his sons. Adel quickly won support from women’s rights groups and others. His message is: girls cannot be made victims of some one else’s mistake; families must stop accepting baad. Adel has two personal goals. “I want to make peace with those who have killed and injured my two brothers, based on law. I want my family to let my sisters study,” he says.
Apart from baad, underage marriages are also a threat to the rights of girl children. Member of Parliament (MP) Lailuma Hakimi says laws should be enforced for the protection of women and girls. “Laws are not implemented; commanders and the powerful do what they want,” she observes.
Another MP Nazifa Zaki feels nothing has come from the “huge amounts of money” spent on institutions “defending women’s rights”.
Shamsullah Ahmadzai at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) office in Kabul says complaints about violence against women are not investigated. “Those accused of perpetrating violence against women are released by police,” he says.
AIHRC reported 225 cases of child marriage in 2014. There were 10 more cases the next year. AIHRC chief Sima Samar fears underage girls are the worst victims in abusive marriages.
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