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October 18, 2006
Afghanistan: 13-Year-Old Jailed for Escaping Arranged Marriage
In a "culture" (you know, religion) in which a woman is always the ward of a male, be it her relative or husband, in a religion whose founder consumated his marriage to a young girl when she was nine years old, this kind of thing is bound to happen: Jailed for escaping 'the old man'
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - At 13, Shabano is as self-conscious and awkward as any teenaged girl. She laughs shyly when asked personal questions and nervously chips at the orange nail polish that can't hide her grimy nails.But Shabano, like the other "women" prisoners in the Kandahar district jail, has adult-sized problems. Two months ago, she was jailed for running away from an arranged marriage with a 50-year-old man, a deal negotiated by her father before his death. Home for her now is a dark cell containing nothing but a filthy mattress folded up and stacked against the concrete wall.
Shabano has been locked up for breaking her father's deal, an exchange that horrified the girl who refers to her former fiance simply as "the old man."
"I don't want to spend my life with this old man," she said, scrunching her nose in disgust. And then in a burst of anger, she launched into a diatribe against her country's ancient custom of arranging marriages for young girls.
"We don't have democracy in this country if someone wants a love marriage," she said. "My father exchanged me for another girl." When her father gave her to the 50-year-old man, he returned the gift by offering his own teenager to Shabano's father.[...]
Posted by Ruy Diaz at October 18, 2006 11:37 AM
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