At age 8, Mina married to 12 -year-old Sardar in a rural village, making her only one of more than 10 million underage girls who are being forced to wed worldwide. The secret wedding ceremony of Mina and Sardar took place in Sholgara district of northern Balkh province in the border with Tajikistan.
Child marriages, which are currently, practiced in several third world countries including Afghanistan, the government passed strong resolution to stop this phenomenon. United Nations designated October 11 as International Day of the Girl Child to forced governments to take strong steps against child marriage. Last night Afghan media broadcast series of heart-breaking photos depicting girl as young as eight years old being married off to a underage boy.
In the district of Sholgara of Balkh province, a father named Abdul Momin gave away his eight-year-old daughter Mina to wed a year old boy because he could not support having his daughter live with him. Mina, the 8-year-old bride from Balkh province who was married off on Friday, was forced to drop out of school, giving up on her dream of becoming a teacher one day. In several part of Afghanistan fathers often remove their daughter from school even before they are engaged to limit their interactions with boys.
In many cases, the girls are lorded over by their husbands and in-laws, leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence as well as physical, sexual and verbal abuse. The forced marriages of girls to under or middle-aged men are not only common in Afghanistan, but also other countries like India and Ethiopia South-Asia and sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.
Girls who marry young β as well as missing out on education β are more likely to suffer poverty, domestic violence, malnutrition, maternal and infant death, obstetric fistula and HIV infection. She probably enjoyed playing outside with her siblings. She probably loved her parents β and did not understand why they sold her into marriage. A marriage that turned out to be her death, and at best would have still meant the end of her life as she knew it.
