Desperate parents forced to marry off children for money

World

Afghanistan has experienced the worst drought in decades which has resulted in thousands of people leaving their homes and pushing families to marry off their children in exchange for bride price for survival, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Approximately, 223 000 people have been forced out of their homes in the drought-hit western provinces of Herat, Badghis and Ghor this year, according to the UN children’s agency (UNICEF).

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Afghan families have been skipping meals and had to rely on the sale of livestock and moving to cities where it is easier to access aid and services.

Some of the displaced families have had to take more drastic measures according to UNICEF, which documented 161 child betrothals or marriages in Herat and Badghis between July and October. Of those, 155 were girls and six were boys.

“The drought is the worst the country has seen in decades,” UNICEF spokeswoman Alison Parker told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Children are becoming the collateral.” Families receive a dowry that can help relieve their financial burdens, having lost their livelihoods and assets, said Parker.

Many families hit by the drought have had to borrow money to pay for transport, food or healthcare, the United Nations said.

The charity World Vision reported that half of the households it surveyed in Badghis in September said child marriage was a measure taken to put food on the table in times of drought. Approximately, 11 million people almost half of Afghanistan’s rural population – will be facing “severe acute food insecurity” until February, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system used by charities to measure hunger.

“Years of civil conflict and instability, as well as the severely degraded condition of much of the land, have compounded the impacts of the drought,” said an IPC report from August.

Additionally,  apart from the drought, conflict between the government and some armed groups such as the Taliban, has resulted in at least 282 000 people having to leave so far this year, according to the United Nations.

The war in Afghanistan which has been ongoing for 17 years,  has also ruined the education system in the country, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, an alliance of aid agencies that includes UNICEF and Save the Children.

With an increase in the number of attacks on schools, teachers and students, the number of children who are not in education has been rapidly increasing for the first time since 2002, the agencies said.

 

Photo credit – AP

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