‘I am still a child, it cannot be good to be married’: how drought forces Afghan families to sell girls as brides

In Badghis province, north-west Afghanistan, droughts made more frequent and extreme by climate change have devastated livelihoods, forcing families to sell young daughters into marriage as a desperate survival strategy. 95% of the population relies on rain-fed agriculture and livestock, which have been destroyed by the prolonged drought conditions.

Eleven-year-old Khatira was sold into marriage to repay debts after her family was displaced from their rural village. Since her engagement, she has stopped going outside because she 'is ashamed of having a husband in front of the other girls,' according to her mother, Noor Bibi.

The practice has become alarmingly common. Gul Bobo, who doesn't know her own age, has sold her two and five-year-old daughters into marriage. 'I know they are too young to be engaged but we had no choice – otherwise we would have waited until after 18,' she said.

Health consequences

Underage brides in Afghanistan face severe health risks, as they are often expected to have children when they reach puberty. The country already has one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. 'I expect them to be beaten, but there is nothing I can do about it. And at 14, they will be pregnant,' Gul Bobo said of her young daughters.

Child brides are also expected to manage households like adults, and when they fail to meet these expectations, domestic violence from in-laws is common. Five-year-old Nazila's husband-to-be is 15, and she could leave to live with her in-laws in just two or three years.

Desperate measures

Families displaced by drought have resorted to extreme measures to survive. Mohammad Yawaz, 55, sells ice cream on the roadside for 100 afghanis (£1.20) a day after mornings spent collecting cans and bottles with his six-year-old daughter Zubaida, who has also been sold into marriage.

Some have gone even further. Bahahuddin, 40, sold his 10-year-old son Ziauddin's kidney for 100,000 afghanis when he couldn't feed his family by collecting rubbish and begging. 'I wanted to sell my own but said I was not healthy enough for people to buy it,' he explained.

Displacement and camps

Thousands have abandoned their ancestral villages to find work in Qala-e-Naw, often unsuccessfully. Many end up in Herat's Shahrak-e-Sabz camp, where humanitarian aid has dried up. Here, Darellah, 15, lives with her 30-year-old husband and is now pregnant. Her sisters, Bibi Zat, nine, and Rahimah, 11, are both engaged.

Khomakha, 30, sold her two-year-old daughter Fatemah into marriage three months after the girl was born because she couldn't afford transport to take her eight-year-old son with blood cancer to weekly hospital transfusions. 'I will not be able to afford transport to visit my daughter once she leaves,' Khomakha said.

Even families who stay in their villages face impossible choices. Abdul Aziz sold five of his daughters into marriage after his wheat harvest failed seven times in eight years. His daughter Mazari, who married at about 12 or 13, said: 'Getting married at 12 was really hard; when I came to his home, I wasn't able to cook, but my husband and in-laws have been really kind.'