An Afghan cleric has defended his marriage to a six-year-old by claiming she was a ‘religious offering’ to him. Mohammad Karim, who is thought to be in his sixties, was arrested following the marriage and being held in the central Ghor province of Afghanistan.
Karim claims that the girl was given to him as a ‘religious offering’, though the girl’s parents say that she was abducted from their home in Herat province.
‘This girl does not speak, but only repeats one thing: “I am afraid of this man”,’ said Masoom Anwari, Head of the Women Affairs Department in Ghor province. Child marriages continued to be common in Afghanistan, despite legislation restricting marriage to women over 16 and men over 18.
According to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health research, among women aged 25-49 in Afghanistan, 53% were married before the age of 18, the Independent reports.
Child marriage, it is believed, is partly responsible for the country’s unusually high maternal death rates. Young girls can die in childbirth if their bodies are not sufficiently developed to withstand labour.
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