45-Year-Old Man Marries 6-Year-Old Girl

A 6-year-old girl has allegedly been forced to marry a 45-year-old man in Afghanistan after she was given away for money.

The youngster had allegedly been exchanged by her father for money to a man who already has two wives, it was reported by Amu.tv.

The marriage was allegedly set to take place on Friday in Helmand province but the Taliban stepped in and arrested both men involved.

No charges were brought against them but they have forced the creep to wait until the girl is nine before he can take her home, local media said.

Meanwhile, UN Women reported last year that there has been a 25 per cent rise in child marriages in Afghanistan after the Taliban banned girls’ education in 2021.

They also said there has been a 45 per cent increase in childbearing across the country.

In the same year as the Taliban came to power, after the US’ heavily criticized exit, a nine-year-old girl who was sold by her father to a 55-year-old man as a child bride was rescued by a charity.

Parwana Malik was sold for the equivalent of £1,600 in land, sheep, and cash to a stranger named Qorban so her father, Abdul Malik, could pay for food.

The little girl had cried day and night before her sale, begging her father instead to go to school to become a doctor.

Parwana’s buyer Qorban said at the time of his deal it was his ‘second marriage’ and insisted he would treat her well.

Her father Abdul said he was ‘broken’ with guilt at the sale of his daughter and was unable to sleep at night.

Only months before had Parwana’s 12-year-old sister been sold to help the family survive.

A US-based charity, Too Young to Wed, helped free the girl from the barbaric arrangement, and her siblings and mother were moved from their camp to a safe house in Herat.

The horrific deal drew international outrage at the time with all 24 then-female senators in the US pushing President Joe Biden to take action to prevent child marriages in Afghanistan.

Young boys have also fallen victim to the brutalities of the Taliban government, with many sexually exploited by older men and turned into sex slaves for the elite.

Under the barbaric tradition of the ‘Bacha Bazi’, young boys and adolescents are adorned in makeup, dressed in brightly coloured women’s clothing, and sent before groups of powerful men to dance and entertain.

Bacha Bazi, whose name translates to ‘boy play’, has persisted for centuries and, while Afghanistan’s current Taliban leadership claims to oppose it, the practice continues as an open secret.

A report released in November detailed how boys remain at high risk of commercial sexual exploitation through Bacha Bazi and ‘are frequently underreported due to stigma and fear, particularly when perpetrators are the police’.

‘Despite the Taliban’s public stance against the practice, reports suggest it remains prevalent and largely unaddressed,’ the UK government report said.

Survivors who have escaped speak of beatings, rape, and psychological torment, only to be cast out once they grow facial hair and are no longer considered desirable.

Many turn to prostitution, drug addiction, or suicide, unable to escape the trauma they have endured.

Though some boys reportedly volunteer, many are sold into this life by their own impoverished families desperate to get by.

Others are quite simply abducted, including by police officers – the very people supposed to prevent Bacha Bazi from resurging.

Photographs and videos that have surfaced online show boys at these gatherings, forced to perform in front of groups of men who later pass them around as objects of pleasure.