SHAIDAI, Afghanistan: Bashful, with long locks of rust-colored hair dyed with henna, Benazir fidgets with a handful of gravel when the topic of her marriage comes up.
She looks down at the ground and buries her head in her knees when asked if she knows she’s been promised to another family to marry one of their sons.
Her father says he will receive the equivalent of $2,000 for Benazir, but he hasn’t explained the details to her or what’s expected of her. She’s too young to understand, he says.
Benazir is 8 years old.
It is traditional for families here to pay a dowry to a bride’s family for a marriage, but it is extreme to arrange a marriage for a child so young. And the economic collapse following the Taliban’s takeover in August has forced already poor families to make desperate choices.
The days are filled with hardships for children here in Shaidai, a desert community on the mountainous edge of Herat in western Afghanistan. Children like Benazir and her siblings beg on the streets, or collect garbage to heat their simple mud homes, because they don’t have enough money for wood.
Her father, Murad Khan, looks much older than his 55 years — his face worn with worry. A day laborer who hasn’t found work in months and with eight children to feed, his decision to sell Benazir to marriage at such a young age comes down to a cold calculation.
“We are 10 people in the family. I’m trying to keep 10 alive by sacrificing one,” he said in Pashto.
Khan said the arrangement is for Benazir to be married to a boy from a family in Iran when she reaches puberty. He hasn’t received the money yet for her dowry, and said as soon as he does, Benazir will be taken away by the man who bought her.
