Saving a nine-year-old child bride in Afghanistan:

[Draggingtree]

Saving a nine-year-old child bride in Afghanistan:

Driving through a snow-capped mountain pass, the young mother huddles together with her six children in the backseat of a car after leaving their makeshift camp in northwestern Afghanistan.

Carrying only a blanket for warmth, 9-year-old Parwana Malik balances on her mother’s lap beside her siblings, as the family is rescued by an aid group that saves girls from child marriage.
“I am really happy,” Parwana said during the journey. “The (charity) rid me from my husband and my husband is old.”

At the time, Parwana’s father Abdul Malik said she cried day and night before, begging him not to sell her, saying she wanted to go to school and study instead…

Even before the Taliban took over, hunger was rife in the impoverished country, and now young girls are paying the price with their bodies — and their lives.

“Afghan young girls (are) becoming the price of food,” leading Afghan women’s rights activist Mahbouba Seraj told CNN. “Because otherwise their family will starve.”

Heartbreaking and horrible:

Seraj said…that some girls forced into marriage die during childbirth because their bodies are too small to cope. “Some of them can’t take it. They mostly die pretty young.”