"When she turns eight, they will take her"

Sima* is 18, but has already given birth four times. Her youngest is a newborn, the eldest is four. Sitting with her children in their mud-brick room in Badghis province, Sima says: “After the Taliban entered the country, I had just finished the sixth grade and was supposed to start the seventh. But two months later, my father pressured me immensely to marry my cousin. After being beaten by my father several times, I was forced to accept.”...

Interviews with workers at one public hospital in northern Afghanistan revealed that 42 underage girls gave birth in the first five months of this year. Six were in their second pregnancy. Five had ectopic pregnancies – a leading cause of maternal deaths – and 18 had caesarean sections. Two died, though their babies survived...

They are victims of a growing trend toward child marriage, driven by Taliban policies legalising the practice and forcing girls out of school, combined with a deepening humanitarian crisis in which families are forced to sell their daughters to pay debts or buy food...

Some families falsely believe the younger the mother, the healthier and smarter the child. Mothers who are still children themselves often haven’t completed their physical or psychological growth and face higher risk of severe bleeding, anaemia, miscarriage, obstructed labour and premature birth, along with a greater likelihood of a low-weight or unhealthy infant...

Shabnam says families often resist caesarean section, believing they limit future pregnancies. Two young mothers in her care recently died in childbirth because their husbands refused to permit one...

The other three families interviewed for this report, all in western Afghanistan, say their daughters had been used to settle debts – money paid in advance, the daughters to be handed over later. Three of the girls are still under 10, unaware of the future that has been planned for them...

“When she turns eight, they will take her from us,” says Golnar. “They gave 100,000 afghani upfront, and they will give another 100,000 after they take the girl from me. We gave it directly to the creditors for the debts.” She worries about her granddaughter’s future, remembering girls sold years ago in her neighbourhood: “They have no future. Whether they leave us to burn in a fire or face anything else, we will not know.”

The grim story continues at The Guardian.