KABUL, Afghanistan — The United Nations expressed "grave concern" on Thursday about a new law issued by Afghanistan's Taliban government on separation in marriage which includes provisions on child marriage, saying the code further entrenches discrimination against women and girls.
The government rejected the accusations, saying the decree follows Islamic law and insisting the country has already banned the forced marriage of girls.
Afghanistan's justice ministry published Decree No. 18 "on judicial separation of spouses" last week, which sets out rules for separation of a married couple.
Among its most controversial provisions, it says that the silence of a girl reaching puberty can be interpreted as consent to marriage. It also includes a section on the separation of girls who reach puberty and are married, which "implies that child marriage is permitted," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement.
"This undermines the principle of free and full consent and failing to safeguard the best interests of the child," it said.
The decree stipulates that a marriage can be ruled invalid "if a father or grandfather has given a minor girl or boy without any dowry, not enough dowry or obscene embezzlement." It also says that a girl given away in marriage by her father or grandfather to a man who "has not treated her with kindness or is well-known for his bad choices...has the right to approach the court to cancel the marriage contract upon reaching puberty."
However, if a girl asks her husband for a divorce and he denies it, "then in this case, there are no witnesses with the girl, the husband's word is valid," the new law says. She does not need witnesses if she makes the request before a judge.
Women and girls already face widespread discrimination in Afghanistan, with laws dictating how they must dress and behave. They are banned from secondary school and universities and from most jobs, as well as from nearly all leisure activities, including gyms, beauty salons and even from public parks.
"Decree No. 18 is part of a broader and deeply concerning trajectory in which the rights of Afghan women and girls are being eroded," said Georgette Gagnon, the U.N.'s Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and officer in charge of UNAMA.
While the law allows for women to separate from their husbands, it makes it much harder for them to do so than it does for men.
The decree "operates in a deeply unequal framework: while men retain the unilateral right to divorce, women must pursue complex and restrictive judicial avenues to separate from a spouse," UNAMA said. "This situation reinforces structural discrimination and limits women's autonomy in matters fundamental to their dignity, safety, and well-being."
After seizing power in Afghanistan following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-backed forces in 2021, the Taliban announced certain limited rights for women, issuing a decree that included the right for women to an inheritance and to refuse marriage. However, "successive decrees have undermined these protections," UNAMA said.
The myriad restrictions imposed by the government "have deprived millions of Afghan women and girls of their right to education, weakened economic participation, and deepened poverty, with long-term consequences for Afghanistan's development," it added.
The objections from "those who contradict the religion of Islam are not new and we should not pay attention to them," Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Afghan government, told the RTA state broadcaster in an interview.
Mujahid noted that Afghanistan's supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has already issued a previous decree that bans the forced marriage of girls. Afghan courts and the country's ministry of vice and virtue have investigated thousands of such cases in the past year alone, he said, "which shows the Islamic Emirate's concern for women's rights."
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