IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: Child marriage rate still high - minister
13 July 2004


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KABUL, 13 July (IRIN) - A high proportion of marriages in Afghanistan 
involve girls below the legal age, according to reports from the Ministry 
of Women's Affairs and NGOs. As many as 57 percent involve young women 
under 16, some of them as young as nine.

"Child marriage is a serious issue in Afghanistan because it has a very 
negative impact on society," Dr Suraya Subehrang, deputy minister of 
women's affairs, told IRIN in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday.

Subehrang explained that such marriages increased the maternal mortality 
rate and denied many young women the chance to get an education. Often, 
after a child marriage, husbands and/or parents-in-law refuse to allow the 
child-wife to go to school under threat of violence.

According to Afghanistan's new constitution, the minimum age of marriage 
for females is 16 and for males 18, but in rural and even some urban areas 
the tradition of marrying off daughters while young in order to receive 
money remains common among the poor.

It is precisely this issue that Medica Mondiale, an International NGO 
supported by the German government, and the office of the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), working to support traumatised 
young women in crisis zones, are involved in. "Child marriage affects 
girls badly in many ways. It blocks them from education and any 
possibility of independent work," Rachel Wareham, Medica Mondiale's head 
of mission, told IRIN.

She said that it also often subjected them to repeated pregnancy and 
childbirth before they had reached physical maturity, which often produced 
serious physical trauma, psychological disturbance and sometimes lifelong 
physical and emotional damage.

The maternal mortality rate is very high in Afghanistan, according to data 
from the United Nations Population Fund in Afghanistan (UNFPA). Every 
hour, two women die while giving birth - the highest maternal mortality 
rate in Asia.

"Maternal mortality is partly linked to a lack of trained medical 
professionals, but it is also very clearly linked to girls who are giving 
birth when they are not yet ready." Wareham noted.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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