Month Old Baby That Got Mauled by Dog
She was sold to a stranger so her family could consume as Afghanistan crumbles
Updated 2348 GMT (0748 HKT) November 1, 2021
(CNN)Parwana Malik, a 9-twelvemonth-one-time girl with nighttime eyes and rosy cheeks, giggles with her friends every bit they play bound rope in a dusty immigration.
Merely Parwana'south laughter disappears as she returns home, a small hut with dirt walls, where she's reminded of her fate: she'south beingness sold to a stranger equally a child bride.
The man who wants to buy Parwana says he's 55, but to her, he's "an quondam homo" with white eyebrows and a thick white beard, she told CNN on October 22. She worries he volition beat her and force her to piece of work in his house.
But her parents say they have no choice.
For 4 years, her family have lived in an Afghan displacement camp in northwestern Badghis province, surviving on humanitarian aid and menial work earning a few dollars a day. Only life has only gotten harder since the Taliban took power in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan on August fifteen.
As international assist dries up and the country's economy collapses, they're unable to beget basic necessities like food. Her father already sold her 12-year-old sister several months agone.
Parwana is ane of many young Afghan girls sold into spousal relationship equally the country's humanitarian crunch deepens. Hunger has pushed some families to make heartbreaking decisions, especially as the brutal wintertime approaches.
The parents gave CNN full access and permission to speak to the children and evidence their faces, because they say they cannot change the practice themselves.
"Twenty-four hours by day, the numbers are increasing of families selling their children," said Mohammad Naiem Nazem, a human being rights activist in Badghis. "Lack of nutrient, lack of piece of work, the families feel they take to do this."
An impossible option
Abdul Malik, Parwana's begetter, tin can't sleep at night. Ahead of the auction, he told CNN he'southward "broken" with guilt, shame and worry.
He had tried to avoid selling her -- he traveled to the provincial capital letter city Qala-eastward-Naw to search unsuccessfully for piece of work, fifty-fifty borrowing "lots of coin" from relatives, and his wife resorted to begging other military camp residents for nutrient.
Simply he felt he had no choice if he wants to feed his family.
"We are eight family members," he told CNN. "I take to sell to keep other family unit members alive."
The money from Parwana's sale volition merely sustain the family unit for a few months, before Malik has to find some other solution, he said.
Parwana said she hoped to change her parents' minds -- she had dreams of condign a teacher, and didn't want to give up her education. But her pleas were futile.
On October 24, Qorban, the heir-apparent, who only has one name, arrived at her home and handed 200,000 Afghanis (about $2,200) in the form of sheep, state and cash to Parwana's father.
In an initial interview recording with CNN, Qorban did not use the word marriage to describe the auction of Parwana, saying he already had a wife who would look subsequently Parwana every bit if she were ane of their own children. But in a afterwards-camera recording on the same twenty-four hour period, Qorban said "information technology is my second union."
"(Parwana) was cheap, and her male parent was very poor and he needs money," Qorban said. "She will be working in my home. I won't shell her. I volition care for her like a family member. I will exist kind."
Parwana, dressed in a black head covering with a colorful floral garland around her neck, hid her face up and whimpered as her weeping male parent told Qorban: "This is your bride. Please accept intendance of her -- you are responsible for her now, please don't shell her."
Qorban agreed, and so gripped Parwana's arm and led her out the door. Equally they left, her begetter watching past the doorway, Parwana dug her feet into the dirt and tried to pull abroad -- just information technology was no use. She was dragged to the waiting car, which slowly pulled away.
'Admittedly cataclysmic'
Since the Taliban's takeover, stories like Parwana's have been on the rise.
Though marrying off children under 15 is illegal nationwide, it has been commonly practiced for years, specially in more rural parts of Afghanistan. And it has only spread since August, driven past widespread hunger and desperation.
More than half the population is facing astute food insecurity, co-ordinate to a Un study released this week. And more than 3 1000000 children nether age 5 confront acute malnutrition in the coming months. All the while, food prices are soaring, banks are running out of money and workers are going unpaid.
Nearly 677,000 people have been displaced this yr due to fighting, co-ordinate to the United nations Part for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Many of them live in tents and huts in internal deportation camps like Parwana'due south family.
"Information technology's absolutely cataclysmic," said Heather Barr, associate director of the women's rights partitioning at Human Rights Watch. "Nosotros don't have months or weeks to stem this emergency ... we are in the emergency already."
The problem is specially acute for Afghan girls, who have stayed dwelling house and watched their brothers render to secondary school since the Taliban takeover. The Taliban said it is working on a plan to allow girls to return too, but accept not said when that could happen or what weather condition may be imposed.
The incertitude combined with rising poverty has pushed many girls into the marriage marketplace.
"Every bit long every bit a girl is in schoolhouse, her family is invested in her future," said Barr, from Man Rights Lookout. "As shortly equally a daughter falls out of teaching, so suddenly it becomes much more probable that she's going to exist married off."
And once a girl is sold as a bride, her chances of continuing an pedagogy or pursuing an independent path are close to zero.
Instead, she faces a much darker future. Without access to contraception or reproductive wellness services, nearly 10% of Afghan girls aged 15 to 19 give birth every year, according to the Un Population Fund (UNFPA).
Many are likewise young to be able to consent to sex and face complications in childbirth due to their underdeveloped bodies -- pregnancy-related bloodshed rates for girls aged fifteen to 19 are more than than double the rate for women anile twenty to 24, according to UNFPA.
'I don't desire to leave my parents'
Magul, a 10-year-old daughter in neighboring Ghor province, cries every 24-hour interval as she prepares to be sold to a 70-year-old human to settle her family'due south debts. Her parents had borrowed 200,000 Afghanis ($2,200) from a neighbour in their village -- but without a task or savings, they have no way of returning the money.
The buyer had dragged Magul's male parent, Ibrahim, to a Taliban prison and threatened to accept him jailed for declining to repay his debt. Ibrahim, who only goes by one name, said he promised the heir-apparent he would pay in a calendar month. But now time is up.
"I don't know what to do," Ibrahim said. "Fifty-fifty if I don't give him my daughters, he volition take them."
Magul'due south mother, Gul Afroz, feels only every bit helpless. "I'k praying to God these bad days pass," she said.
Like Qorban, the buyer claimed he would not mistreat Magul and that she would only help with cooking and cleaning at his domicile. Merely the reassurances ring hollow in the face of his threats against Magul's family.
"I really don't want him. If they make me go, I will kill myself," Magul said, sobbing as she sat on the floor of her home. "I don't desire to get out my parents."
Information technology'due south a similar situation for a nine-fellow member family unit in Ghor province that is selling two daughters aged 4 and 9. The father has no job, similar virtually in the displacement camp -- but he faces even tougher odds with a inability.
He is prepared to sell the girls for 100,000 Afghanis (about $1,100) each. Zaiton, the 4-year-old, with wispy bangs and large brownish eyes, said she knows why this is happening: "Because we are a poor family unit and nosotros don't have food to eat."
Their grandmother, Rokhshana, is distraught.
"If we accept nutrient and there is someone to help u.s., nosotros would never do this," Rokhshana said through tears. "We don't take any choice."
International funding dried up
Local Taliban leaders in Badghis say they plan to distribute food to stop families selling their daughters. "Once we implement this programme, if they proceed to sell their kids we volition put them in jail," said Mawlawai Jalaludin, a spokesperson from the Taliban'south Justice Department, without elaborating.
But the problem stretches beyond only Badghis. And as winter approaches, both the Taliban and humanitarian groups are pleading for more assistance, hoping information technology could stem the rise in child marriages.
The Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan as the United States and its allies withdrew prompted the international community to halt development assist -- money that had been vital in propping upwardly the country'south economy and key services.
Countries and multilateral institutions accept been reluctant to renew pledges for fright of appearing to legitimize the Taliban as Afghanistan's leaders.
With the country's economy close to collapse, Un donors pledged more than $ane billion in humanitarian aid in September, of which $606 million would meet Afghans' most pressing needs. Just less than half those pledged funds have been received, with some fellow member states who have not yet paid, according to a UNOCHA spokesperson.
Several of the families and experts CNN spoke with expressed frustration at the shortage of help during the country'due south direst 60 minutes.
Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, head of office at UNOCHA, emphasized that humanitarian aid workers were still on the ground, providing relief and supporting hospitals -- but it'due south not enough.
"Past not releasing the (development) funds that they are holding from the Taliban authorities, it's the vulnerable, it's the poor, it'south these young girls who are suffering," Carlsen said.
Barr and Carlsen acknowledged the demand for earth leaders to hold the Taliban accountable for homo rights violations -- but they warned the longer Afghanistan goes without development assistance or injected liquidity, the more families face up death by starvation, and the more girls are likely to be sold.
The Taliban has also appealed for help. "The Taliban is asking assist agencies to come dorsum to Afghanistan and help these people," said one Taliban director of an internal displacement campsite in Ghor province. "I'm requesting the international community and aid agencies, before the winter comes, to please come and aid."
Back in the Afghan displacement army camp in Badghis province, Malik is nether no illusions most what the sale means for his daughter -- or what the grim situation means for his family's futurity.
Qorban said he volition use his daughter equally a worker not a bride, merely Malik knows he has no control over what happens to her now.
"The old man told me, 'I'one thousand paying for the girl. It's none of your concern what I'm doing with her ... that'due south my business,'" Malik told CNN.
The ominous warning weighs heavily on him as he considers the dour days ahead. The cold is creeping in, and snow has already begun coating parts of the land. When the money from Parwana's sale runs out, he will be back at foursquare one -- with three daughters and a son still at dwelling to support.
"Equally I can meet, we don't have a futurity -- our hereafter is destroyed," he said. "I will have to sell another daughter if my financial situation doesn't improve -- probably the 2-year-old."
This story has been updated to include additional on-camera comments fabricated by Qorban.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/01/asia/afghanistan-child-marriage-crisis-taliban-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
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