Marriage--or else: in Afghanistan, girls as young as 8 are forced into marriage. If they try to escape they risk public floggings, or worse.

• Author: Nordland, Rod
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

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The two Afghan girls had every reason to think the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were riding in.

Disguised in boys' clothes, Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, had been traveling for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men. Now they had made it to a more liberal province in the northwest part of the country, 175 miles from their remote village in central Afghanistan.

But the policeman recognized them as girls, ignored their pleas, and sent them back home, where they were publicly and viciously flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.

In another case, Sumbol, 17, was kidnapped and taken to Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, then given a choice: marry her tormentor or become a suicide bomber.

"He said, 'If you don't marry me, I will put a bomb on your body and send you to the police station,'" Sumbol says.

Criminal by most Western standards, child marriage is common in many parts of Afghanistan, with the government either unable or unwilling to challenge it. Though the new Afghan constitution, adopted in 2004, technically forbids marriage before age 16, tribal customs dating back thousands of years often predominate in this landlocked country of 34 million people.

According to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in Washington, D.C., tribal leaders sometimes condone marriage for girls as young as 8. Marriage usually spells the end of the child's education or career prospects. And girls who refuse or run away can face severe penalties, like public beatings, mutilation, or worse.

"Early marriage and forced marriage are the two most common forms of violent behavior against women and girls" in Afghanistan, says Fawzia Kofi, a prominent female member of the Afghan Parliament.

The most recent Unicef study found that 43 percent of Afghan women marry before age 18. Poverty is usually a motivating factor, either because a husband pays a large dowry--sometimes known as a "bride-price"--to the family or because marrying off a daughter means one less mouth to feed. In some cases, fathers give their daughters away to settle debts.

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That was the case for 15-year-old Sakhina. She was sold into marriage to pay off her father's debts at age 12 or 13. (Records of birth dates are less common in Afghanistan and other developing nations.)

Her husband's family used her as a servant. "Every time they could, they found an excuse to beat me" she says. "My brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my husband, all of them beat me."

She managed to flee to Kabul...