An old problem has returned in Afghanistan: when the Taliban ask for your hand in marriage. Some women who refuse forced marriages are trying to resist, or flee the country.
Khatira was born in the last year of the Taliban’s first round of rule over Afghanistan.Khatira, 22, lost her job after the regime’s return. But her problems were just beginning. A 40-year-old local Taliban official, a relative of her mother’s, proposed to her. He had done so earlier but Khatira had said no.She said her mother could not refuse his request, and she told him to come the next day and accept a flower from Khatira’s family — a traditional sign of engagement.
Khatira said forced marriages of Taliban officials with teenagers are not uncommon. A few months ago, a commander forcibly married a teenager in her family’s house in Kunduz.Fawzia Koofi, a former member of the Afghan parliament, said forced marriage and so-called underage marriage have greatly increased with the Taliban’s return. There are no official statistics butKoofi cited reports from all over the country that Taliban commanders have forcibly married educated girls.
Koofi, who was once on the parliament’s Women and Human Rights Committee and who worked on laws protecting women, said that for two decades after the Taliban’s first regime, there was less pressure for forced marriage. She attributed that to changes in the law, public awareness, the increase in women working, and women’s rights advocacy.Under the Taliban, polygamy has increased among many of its commanders, leadingto issue an order.
Zohra said she was the family’s sole breadwinner, and lost her job. The new regime cut off her father’s pension as a former government employee.
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