AFGANISTAN: A six-year-old girl has been forced to marry a 55-year-old man after her father allegedly sold her in exchange for a goat in Afghanistan.
Both the man, Seyed Abdolkarim, and the girl’s father have been arrested after a concerned relative raised the alarm about the wedding.
According to the father, who also allegedly received rice, tea, sugar and cooking oil for his daughter, he and his family were desperate for food and by selling his daughter he had one less mouth to feed.
The officers were pursuing the father after local women discovered what had happened and snapped at him.
https://youtu.be/cm3zW_3hyPc
The footage was taken by local journalist Fawad Ahmady for France 24.
Abdolkarim promised him that he wouldn’t have sexual intercourse with the girl until she turned 18 and that sealed the deal.
After the ceremony, the imam reportedly took his six-year-old wife to his relative’s house in Firozkoh, in Ghor province, without specifying their status. Thus the house owner at first thought that it was his daughter. However, some time later he noticed that Abdolkarim was undressing the girl before they slept.
A local women rights bureau for Ghor province was later notified.
Tests carried out at a local hospital at a hospital proved that the imam didn’t touch the girl, who is now in a safe place with her mother.
The bureau is planning to arrange a divorce and strip the father of his parental rights.
