Afghanistan: Girls Sold for Food
In Afghanistan, where more than half of all children under five are chronically malnourished, some parents are forced to take extreme measures - selling their pre-teen daughters as wives to older, more affluent men.
‘We didn't want to sell her,’ says the mother of 11-year-old Fatima. ‘We wanted to wait until she was 20. But we were forced to. There was no other way.’
Fatima is now engaged to a man who gave her parents HK$46,800 (US$6,000). ‘We have no money,’ her mother continues. ‘These days, the high price of food is affecting us in a bad way… we are borrowing money just to buy food.’
Early marriage is also prevalent in south Asian countries like India and Bangladesh. Families marry off their daughters early so they can hand over the task of feeding an extra mouth to some other family.
The other family is happy to receive someone who serves as an extra pair of hands, as unpaid labour in agriculture and other economic activities. |
Fatima, 11, is engaged to a wealthy older man who gave her parents US$6,000 in exchange for her. They had no other way to afford food.
Mary Kate MacIsaac/World Vision
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