Desperate families sell their daughters to survive in Afghanistan 5:45
(CNN) -
Parwana Malik, a 9-year-old girl with dark eyes and rosy cheeks, laughs with her friends as they play jump rope in a dusty clearing.
But Parwana's laugh disappears when she returns home, a small hut with dirt walls, where she is reminded of her fate: she is being sold to a stranger as a child wife.
The man who wants to buy Parwana says he is 55 years old, but to her he is "an old man" with white eyebrows and a thick white beard, she told CNN on October 22.
She worries that he will hit her and force her to work at home.
But her parents say they have no other choice.
For four years, his family has lived in a camp for displaced Afghans in the northwestern province of Badghis, surviving on humanitarian aid and domestic work, earning a few dollars a day.
But life has gotten more difficult since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan on August 15.
As international aid dries up and the country's economy collapses, they cannot afford basic necessities like food.
His father already sold his 12-year-old sister several months ago.
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A camp for internally displaced persons in Qala-i-Naw, Badghis province, on October 17.
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Parwana is one of many young Afghan women sold for marriage as the country's humanitarian crisis deepens.
Hunger has pushed some families to make heartbreaking decisions, especially as brutal winter approaches.
The parents gave CNN full access and permission to talk to the children and show their faces, because they say they cannot change the practice alone.
"Day by day, the number of families selling their daughters is increasing," said Mohammad Naiem Nazem, a human rights activist in Badghis.
"Lack of food, lack of work, families feel they have to do this."
An impossible decision
Abdul Malik, Parwana's father, cannot sleep at night.
Before the sale, he told CNN that he is "shattered" with guilt, shame and worry.
He had tried to avoid selling it: he traveled to the provincial capital Qala-e-Naw to look for work without success, even borrowing "a lot of money" from relatives, and his wife resorted to begging other residents of the camp for food.
But he felt he had no other choice if he wanted to feed his family.
"We are eight members of the family," he told CNN.
"I have to sell to keep other family members alive."
Parwana Malik, 9, and her father Abdul, at their home in a camp for internally displaced persons in Afghanistan's Badghis province.
The money from the sale of Parwana will only support the family for a few months, before Malik has to find another solution, he said.
Parwana said she hoped to change her parents' mind - she had a dream of becoming a teacher and didn't want to give up her education.
But his pleas were useless.
On October 24, Qorban, the buyer, who has only one name, came to his home and handed over 200,000 Afghans (about US $ 2,200) in the form of sheep, land and cash to Parwana's father.
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Qorban did not describe the sale as a marriage, saying that he already had a wife who would care for Parwana as if she were one of her own children.
"(Parwana) was cheap, and her father was very poor and he needs money," Qorban said.
"She will work at my house. I will not hit her. I will treat her like a member of the family. I will be nice."
Parwana, dressed in a black head covering with a colorful flower garland around her neck, hid her face and groaned when her crying father told Qorban: "This is your wife. Please take care of her, now you are responsible for her, please don't hit her. "
Qorban nodded, then grabbed Parwana's arm and led her toward the door.
As they left, with her father watching from the door, Parwana sank her feet to the ground and tried to pull away, but it was no use.
They dragged her to the waiting car, which drove slowly away.
'Absolutely catastrophic'
Since the Taliban took power, stories like Parwana's have been on the rise.
Although marrying off girls under the age of 15 is illegal across the country, it has been commonly practiced for years, especially in the more rural areas of Afghanistan.
And it has only spread since August, fueled by widespread hunger and despair.
More than half the population faces acute food insecurity, according to a United Nations report released this week.
And more than 3 million children under the age of 5 face acute malnutrition in the coming months.
Meanwhile, food prices are skyrocketing, banks are running out of money, and workers are not getting paid.
Almost 677,000 people have been displaced this year due to the fighting, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
Many of them live in tents and huts in camps for internally displaced people like Parwana's family.
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Men sit in a camp for internally displaced persons in Qala-i-Naw, Badghis province, on October 17.
"It is absolutely catastrophic," said Heather Barr, associate director of the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch.
"We do not have months or weeks to stop this emergency ... we are already in the emergency."
The problem is particularly acute for Afghan girls, who have stayed home and seen their siblings return to high school since the Taliban took power.
The Taliban said they are working on a plan to allow the girls to return as well, but have not said when that might happen or what conditions may be imposed.
Uncertainty combined with increasing poverty has pushed many girls into the marriage market.
"As long as a girl is in school, her family is committed to her future," said Barr of Human Rights Watch.
"As soon as a girl leaves school, she suddenly becomes much more likely to be married."
And once a girl is sold as a wife, her chances of pursuing an education or pursuing an independent path are slim to none.
Instead, he faces a much darker future.
Without access to contraception or reproductive health services, nearly 10% of Afghan girls between the ages of 15 and 19 give birth each year, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Many are too young to consent to sex and face complications in childbirth due to their underdeveloped bodies: pregnancy-related death rates for girls aged 15-19 are more than double those for women from 20 to 24 years old, according to UNFPA.
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'I don't want to leave my parents'
Magul, a 10-year-old girl from neighboring Ghor province, cries every day as she prepares to be sold to a 70-year-old man to pay off her family's debts.
His parents had borrowed 200,000 Afghans (US $ 2,200) from a neighbor in their village, but without work or savings, they have no way of repaying the money.
The buyer dragged Magul's father, Ibrahim, to a Taliban prison and threatened to imprison him for not paying his debt.
Ibrahim, who only has one name, said he promised the buyer that he would pay in a month.
But now his time is up.
"I don't know what to do," Ibrahim said.
"Even if I don't give him my daughters, he will take them."
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2021/10/29/Afghanistan-loop02.mp4
Magul washes his family's dishes outside their home in Afghanistan's Ghor province.
Credit: CNN
Magul's mother, Gul Afroz, feels just as powerless.
"I pray to God these bad days pass," he said.
Like Qorban, the buyer claimed that he would not mistreat Magul and that she would simply help cook and clean at his home.
But the guarantees ring hollow in the face of his threats against Magul's family.
"I really don't want it. If they force me to go, I'll kill myself," Magul said, sobbing as he sat on the floor of his house.
"I don't want to leave my parents."
It is a similar situation for a family of nine in Ghor province that sells two daughters aged 4 and 9.
The father does not have a job, like most in the camp for the displaced, but faces even more difficult difficulties with a disability.
He is willing to sell the girls for 100,000 Afghanis (about $ 1,100) each.
Zaiton, the 4-year-old girl, with wispy bangs and big brown eyes, said she knows why this happens: "Because we are a poor family and we have no food."
His grandmother, Rokhshana, is distraught.
"If we had food and there is someone to help us, we would never do this," Rokhshana said through tears.
"We have no other choice."
Zaiton, 4, plays with his brother at their home in Ghor province, Afghanistan.
International funding ran out
Local Taliban leaders in Badghis say they plan to distribute food to prevent families from selling their daughters.
"Once we implement this plan, if they continue to sell their daughters, we will put them in jail," said Mawlawai Jalaludin, a spokesman for the Taliban Justice Department, without elaborating.
But the problem goes beyond Badghis.
And as winter approaches, both the Taliban and humanitarian groups are calling for more help, in hopes that the rise in child marriages can be stopped.
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban when the United States and its allies withdrew led the international community to halt development assistance, money that had been vital in propping up the country's economy and key services.
Taliban fighters in a pickup truck along a highway in the Band Sabzak area of Badghis province, Afghanistan, on Oct. 17.
Countries and multilateral institutions have been reluctant to renew their promises for fear of appearing to legitimize the Taliban as the leaders of Afghanistan.
With the country's economy on the brink of collapse, UN donors pledged more than $ 1 billion in humanitarian aid in September, of which $ 606 million would meet the most urgent needs of Afghans.
But less than half of the promised funds have been received, and some member states have yet to pay, according to a UNOCHA spokesperson.
Several of the families and experts CNN spoke with expressed frustration at the lack of help during the country's toughest hour.
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Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, UNOCHA's office manager, emphasized that humanitarian workers were still on the ground, providing relief and supporting hospitals, but it is not enough.
"By not releasing the (development) funds they have from the Taliban government, it is the vulnerable, it is the poor, it is these girls who are suffering," Carlsen said.
Barr and Carlsen recognized the need for world leaders to hold the Taliban accountable for human rights violations, but warned that the longer Afghanistan goes without development assistance or cash flow, the more families face death from starvation. and girls are more likely to be sold.
The Taliban have also asked for help.
"The Taliban are asking aid agencies to go back to Afghanistan and help these people," said a Taliban director of an IDP camp in Ghor province.
"I am asking the international community and aid agencies, before winter comes, to please come and help."
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Back in the Afghan displaced persons camp in Badghis province, Malik has no illusions about what the sale means for his daughter, or what the dire situation means for his family's future.
Qorban said he will use his daughter as a worker, not as a wife, but Malik knows he has no control over what happens to her now.
"The old man told me, 'I'm paying for the girl. It's none of your business what I do with her ... that's my problem,'" Malik told CNN.
The ominous warning weighs heavily on him as he considers the gloomy days ahead.
The cold is approaching and snow has already started to cover parts of the country.
When the money from the sale of Parwana runs out, he will return to where he started, with three daughters and a son still at home to support.
"As I can see, we have no future, our future is destroyed," he said.
"I will have to sell another daughter if my financial situation does not improve, probably the 2-year-old."
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