Taliban child marriage law has NO minimum age for girls

The Taliban has introduced a new family law with no minimum age for marriage, prompting human rights groups to warn that the rules risk normalizing child marriage in Afghanistan.

Susan Ferguson, UN Women’s special representative in Afghanistan, said the new law represented ‘another serious development’ in the erosion of women’s rights nearly five years after the group returned to power.

The body warned that the rules failed to set a minimum age for marriage and marked a departure from laws in place before the Taliban took power in August 2021, when Afghanistan criminalized forced child marriage.

“To imply that child marriage is permissible risks normalizing the practice,” Ferguson said.

The new regulation instead defines procedures by which a marriage involving a child can be annulled after the person reaches puberty, according to UN Women.

31-article regulation called ‘Principles of Separation Between Spouses’ It outlines the rules governing the dissolution of marriages under an infinite number of religious and legal circumstances.

These include child marriage, breastfeeding relationships, forced separation, missing husbands, apostasy, and accusations of adultery.

Much emphasis is given to the chapter on ‘hiyar al-bulugh’ (“election upon puberty”), an Islamic legal provision that allows for the annulment of a marriage made during childhood when the person reaches puberty.

Image: Eight-year-old Afghan girl named Noqra Gul sold by her father Abdul

According to Article 5, an arranged marriage by relatives other than the child’s father or grandfather is legally valid, provided that the spouse is socially compatible and the dowry is appropriate.

According to independent Afghan broadcaster Amu TV, the regulation states that the child can request an annulment after reaching puberty, but this can only be done by court order.

The rules also give heads of families broad authority over child marriages, but state that marriages can be invalidated if the guardians are deemed abusive, mentally unfit or morally corrupt.

Many provisions support the strict enforcement of guardianship, especially Article 7, which establishes a double standard regarding marriage consent.

The document states that the silence of a ‘virgin girl’ is interpreted as consent to marriage, whereas the silence of a man or a previously married woman is not interpreted in this way.

In Afghanistan, where women and girls are unlikely to speak out for fear of punishment, the new legislation risks trapping many girls.

The regulation also gives Taliban judges broad powers to intervene in marital disputes over issues such as apostasy, ‘falling away from Islam’, long-term absence of the husband and accusations of adultery.

Special mention is made here of ‘zihar’, a classical Islamic concept in which a husband likens his wife to a forbidden female relative.

According to this article, judges can force husbands to fulfill religious penalties or grant divorce. They may use imprisonment and corporal punishment to enforce compliance.

The text also includes marriage restrictions regarding ‘milk relatives’ in Islamic law.

Since children breastfed by the same woman are considered siblings, judges are allowed to annul marriages if this relationship occurs between spouses.

Nine-year-old Parwana Malik was sold by her parents to a stranger whom the teenager described as an “old man” because of his white beard and eyebrows.

Taliban security personnel stand guard as women wearing Afghan burqas wait in line

The regulations also outline procedures for cases involving long-term missing husbands and allow for court intervention under certain circumstances.

The new rules come as the Taliban continues to impose oppressive restrictions on women and girls since taking power in August 2021.

Since regaining control, the Taliban has banned girls from education beyond the sixth grade and imposed sweeping restrictions on women’s work and movement.

Earlier this year, the Taliban introduced a new penal code that created a caste system that puts women on the same level as ‘slaves’.

Under the new law, husbands are allowed to beat their wives as long as there is no serious bodily harm.

Article 32 states that if the husband beats the woman with a stick and this action causes serious injuries such as ‘injury or bruising’ and the woman proves this before the judge, the husband will be sentenced to fifteen days in prison.

But the paradox here is that a woman must remain completely covered and at the same time prove to the judge that she is injured.

She must also be accompanied by a male companion, usually the husband himself.

The new law also does not condemn or prohibit sexual or psychological violence against women.

The law also prevents women from seeking refuge with their families to escape violence at home.

Article 34 of the law states that a woman who repeatedly goes to her father’s or other relatives’ house without her husband’s permission and “does not return home despite her husband’s wishes” may face a three-month prison sentence.

His family and relatives will also face punishment.

Islamic laws in Afghanistan have become so restrictive that even barbers face arrest for cutting men’s beards too short.

In January, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice doubled down on its earlier order, saying it was now ‘mandatory’ to grow beards longer than fists.

Minister Khalid Hanafi said it was ‘the responsibility of the government to guide the nation to have an outlook in line with sharia, or Islamic law’.

He said officials tasked with promoting virtue ‘have a duty to implement the Islamic system’.

In the eight-page guide for imams published in November, imams were told to describe shaving beards as a “major sin” in their sermons.