{"id":11434,"date":"2022-08-11T02:35:26","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T02:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=11434"},"modified":"2022-10-15T14:20:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T14:20:12","slug":"88-of-minor-girls-are-forced-to-marry-by-their-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2022\/08\/88-of-minor-girls-are-forced-to-marry-by-their-families\/","title":{"rendered":"“88% of minor girls are forced to marry by their families”"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – One year since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, an economic crisis, crippling drought and new restrictions have shattered girls\u2019 lives, excluding them from society and leaving them hungry, with a quarter showing signs of depression, according to a new report\u00a0by Save the Children.<\/p>\n

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The report,\u00a0titled\u00a0Breaking point: Life for children one year since the Taliban takeover,\u00a0shows that 97% of families are struggling to provide enough food for their children, and that girls are eating less than boys. Almost 80% of children said they had gone to bed hungry in the past 30 days.\u00a0Girls were almost twice as likely as boys to frequently go to bed hungry.<\/p>\n

A lack of food is having devastating consequences on children\u2019s health and threatening their future. Nine in 10 girls\u00a0said their meals had reduced in the past year and that they\u00a0worry because they\u2019re losing weight and have no energy to study, play and work.<\/p>\n

The crisis is also taking a dangerous toll on girls\u2019 mental and\u00a0psychosocial wellbeing. According to interviews with their caregivers, 26% of girls are showing signs of depression compared with 16% of boys, and 27% of girls are showing signs of anxiety compared with 18% of boys.<\/p>\n

Girls in focus groups said they had\u00a0trouble sleeping at night\u00a0because they were worried\u00a0and have bad dreams. They also said they had been\u00a0excluded from many of the activities that previously made them happy, such as spending time with relatives and friends and going to parks and shops.<\/p>\n

After the Taliban\u2019s takeover last August, thousands of secondary school girls were ordered to stay home, reversing years of progress for gender equality. Girls interviewed by Save the Children expressed disappointment and anger over the fact they can no longer go to school and said they felt hopeless about their future because they don\u2019t have the rights and freedoms they had previously.<\/p>\n

More than 45% of girls said they\u2019re not attending school \u2013 compared with 20% of boys \u2013 listing economic challenges, the Taliban\u2019s ban on girls attending secondary school classes as well as community attitudes as the key barriers preventing them from accessing education.<\/p>\n

Parishad*, 15, lives in northern Afghanistan and doesn\u2019t go to school because her parents cannot afford to feed their children, let alone pay for her books and stationery. Her family\u2019s situation has rapidly deteriorated in the past 12 months and they were evicted from their home because they couldn\u2019t pay the rent. The landlord offered to buy one of Parishad\u2019s siblings, but her parents refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days my father cannot bring food. My brothers wake up at midnight and cry for food. I don\u2019t eat, and I save my food for my brothers and sisters. When my brothers and sisters ask for food, I get upset and cry a lot. I go to my neighbour\u2019s house and ask for food. Sometimes they\u2019ll help and give me food and sometimes they say they don\u2019t have anything to give me,\u201d Parishad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we left our old house to come to this house, I was deeply upset and I said, \u2018why are we leaving again, why are we facing these problems again?\u2019 I was deeply angry, and it was a very difficult time and I cried.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to go to school. When I see other girls going to school, I wish I could go to school too. Every month we change houses and it\u2019s difficult for us to go to school. We also don\u2019t have any stationery and\u00a0we need money to buy books. I can\u2019t tolerate it. I can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the withdrawal of international forces last year, the Taliban took power on 15 August. Billions of dollars in international aid were withdrawn, Afghanistan\u2019s foreign currency reserves were frozen and the banking system collapsed. The subsequent economic crisis and the country\u2019s worst drought in 30 years\u00a0have\u00a0plunged households into poverty.<\/p>\n

Children interviewed by Save the Children said the economic situation \u2013 leaving households without enough to eat and without basic items \u2013 was driving an increase in child marriages in their communities, and that this was impacting girls more than boys. Out of the children who said they\u2019d been asked to marry to improve their family\u2019s financial situation in the past year, 88% were girls.<\/p>\n

Chris Nyamandi, Save the Children Country Director in Afghanistan, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is dire for children in Afghanistan, one year since the Taliban took control. Children are going to bed hungry night after night. They\u2019re exhausted and wasting away, unable to play and study like they used to. They\u2019re spending their days toiling in brick factories, collecting rubbish and cleaning homes instead of going to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirls are bearing the brunt of the deteriorating situation. They\u2019re missing more meals, suffering from isolation and emotional distress and are staying home while boys go to school. This is a humanitarian crisis, but also a child rights catastrophe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solution cannot be found in Afghanistan alone. The solution lies in the corridors of power and in the offices of our global political leaders.\u00a0If they don\u2019t provide immediate humanitarian funding and find a way to revive the banking system and support the spiralling economy, children\u2019s lives will be lost, and more boys and girls will lose their childhoods to labour, marriage and rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

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MONITORING (SW) – One year since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, an economic crisis, crippling drought and new restrictions have shattered girls\u2019 lives, excluding them from society and leaving them hungry, with a quarter showing signs of depression, according to a new report\u00a0by Save the Children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,16,977,983,200,981,980,24,5,6,7],"tags":[12,278,683],"class_list":["post-11434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soceity","category-report","category-women-rights","category-media-freedom","category-democracy-human-rights","category-economy","category-society-culture","category-women","category-politics_","category-afghanistan","category-headline","tag-afghanistan","tag-children","tag-islamic-emirate"],"views":214,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12188,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions\/12188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}