When laws fail girls: lessons from Afghanistan
In 2013, lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked a law that proposed a minimum marriage age for girls. The same year, a report described a sharp rise in the number of women jailed for running away from home. This article sets out what the reports said and what they teach.
A law that did not pass
The proposed law would have set a minimum marriage age for girls. It would also have stopped women from being prosecuted for rapes committed against them. Some lawmakers said such laws might encourage sex outside marriage.
Reports at the time said this failure showed how fragile women's rights remained, a dozen years after the US-led war that overthrew the Taliban.
Punished for running away
On 21 May 2013, the Telegraph reported figures from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, obtained by Human Rights Watch. They showed that the number of women and girls convicted of "moral crimes", which include running away from home, had risen by 50% in a year, from 400 to 600.
The group said that many of these women were victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse. Their only "crime" was to run away from the people who hurt them.
What this teaches
- A minimum age of marriage protects girls only when it becomes law.
- Girls who flee abuse need shelter, not prison.
- Women's rights can slip back if no one defends them.
Girls everywhere deserve laws that protect them and systems that believe them.