UNICEF has called on the Taliban authorities to reopen girls’ schools above sixth grade to help prevent child marriage and to expand support and health services. The appeal comes as the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice said it had prevented several cases of forced and underage marriage over the past five months.<\/p>\n
Saif-ul-Islam Khaibar, spokesman for the ministry, said that among these cases, the marriage of two girls aged six and eight in Helmand and Nangarhar provinces was prevented. He said child marriage was partly caused by a lack of awareness and harmful traditional practices, and urged people to report cases of forced marriage to the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n
Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, said in a message marking International Day of the Girl in 2026 that more investment was needed in education, health services and protection for girls. UNICEF has warned that child marriage can disrupt girls’ education, reduce their future opportunities and increase the risk of violence, early pregnancy and childbirth complications.<\/p>\n
According to findings from the Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey in 2022 and 2023, 28.7% of women aged 20 to 24 said they had been married before turning 18. In some areas, the figure is as high as one in every two girls.<\/p>\n
UNICEF also called for stronger support services, assistance for vulnerable families and the provision of essential health care. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also previously called for an end to child marriage, warning that the practice threatens the education, health and safety of millions of girls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNICEF urges the Taliban to reopen girls’ schools and expand support services to help stop child marriage in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-secondary-headline","category-social-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}