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This week’s Gandhara Briefing gives perception into why worry of the Taliban is prompting some Afghan dad and mom to marry off their daughters early; the questioning of Taliban corporal punishments; and the struggles of Afghan Military girls.
Compelled Afghan Matrimony
I write about why the pressured and early marriages of teenage women are rising throughout Afghanistan 15 months after the Taliban shut secondary colleges for ladies.
Human rights activists and teenage brides we spoke to say some dad and mom imagine that marrying off their daughters protects them from being sought by Taliban members for marriage. Some fighters and leaders of the group are even searching for their second or third wives.
“I did not need to marry,” Khatira, a 12-year-old seventh-grader in Ghor, instructed us. “However my father warned me that if I refused to marry, the Taliban would power him to marry me to one in all their fighters.”
Nicolette Waldman, a researcher for Amnesty Worldwide, stated baby, early, and compelled marriages are a results of sweeping Taliban restrictions on Afghan girls, depriving them of training, work, and any societal function.
“These insurance policies type a system of repression that discriminates in opposition to girls and women in Afghanistan in nearly each facet of their lives,” she instructed me.
(Watch a gaggle of Afghan girls and women holding secret taekwondo periods in Kabul.)
Taliban’s Corporal Punishments Questioned
Radio Azadi stories on why Afghans are skeptical of the motives behind the Taliban’s drive to impose Islamic Hudood punishments for what Islamic Shari’a regulation considers severe crimes as a result of they encroach on the “boundaries of God.”
Spiritual and authorized specialists are questioning whether or not the Taliban has the non secular authority, legitimacy, and Afghanistan’s greatest pursuits in thoughts in imposing harsh punishments akin to flogging for ingesting, the amputation of limbs for theft, and stoning to dying for adultery.
“That is only a propaganda stunt as a result of the Taliban lacks the capability to implement full justice outlined in Islam,” stated Salahuddin Saeedi, an Afghan non secular scholar.
He argued that Hudood can solely be carried out underneath strict situations outlined by Islamic regulation.
“The Taliban authorities lacks the legitimacy to implement Hudood,” he stated.
Even the commentators sympathetic to the Taliban suppose that handing down Hudood punishments with out securing home legitimacy and worldwide recognition isn’t a good suggestion.
“It’s not necessary to flog individuals,” stated Hatef Mukhtar, a political commentator. He added that the Taliban’s first precedence ought to be gaining worldwide recognition and ending Afghanistan’s present isolation.
(Watch the hefty worth Afghan youngsters are paying for dwelling in a warfare zone the place greater than 100 individuals are maimed by unexploded ordnance each month.)
Afghan Ladies Troopers
In a video report, we take you to fulfill some girls members of the defunct Afghan Nationwide Military.
They’re struggling to outlive after the Taliban stopped paying their salaries following its seizure of energy in August 2021.
“The kids do not perceive if I inform them there isn’t a meals at present,” stated a former military main struggling to feed her 4 youngsters.
“As quickly as they notice that I’ve a navy background, they flip me away,” she stated of her efforts to seek out work.
Afghanistan’s Final Sikh
In a video report, we meet Charin Singh. The center-aged shopkeeper in Jalalabad is believed to be the one Sikh remaining in Afghanistan.
“Some have been taken by their family to Canada, some went to London, however most went to Delhi,” he stated of the final 300 Sikh households, who left the nation after a militant assault killed greater than 25 neighborhood members inside a Sikh temple.
“Everyone seems to be afraid to return,” he stated of fellow Sikhs whose companies and properties have been appropriated by their Muslim neighbors.
Forbidden Lamb Testicles
Radio Azadi stories on why the Taliban authorities have banned lamb testicles in Herat eating places. They take into account the native delicacy un-Islamic.
“I am stunned that the Taliban are specializing in small points akin to banning the sale of sheep testicles. It’s a actually small difficulty,” a Herat resident stated of the ban. “We have now many larger issues in Afghanistan, akin to poverty and the closure of women’ colleges.”
Eating places are dropping a major a part of their enterprise as they will not serve kalpura — the native Kabab dish believed to enhance virility in males.
“Daily, 20 to 50 clients used to eat ‘sheep egg’ kebabs for breakfast,” stated Khair Mohammad, a restaurant proprietor. “Now we reject all who come to purchase ‘sheep eggs,’ and if we promote them, we will likely be punished.”
That is all from me this week.
Till subsequent time,
Abubakar Siddique
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