Child Bride Tortured To Death By Husband in 'Revenge Killing'
Child was found in the north-western province of Badghis
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An Afghan child who was forced to marry an older man in a traditional bridal exchange was tortured to death in a 'revenge killing' according to reports.
The body of the child bride, Hameya, was estimated to be aged between seven and ten years old by authorities.
Hameya was found in the north-western province of Badghis on Sunday night.
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According to The Sun: She had been married for six months under a tradition known as 'Badal', when girls are exchanged between two families as brides.
Badal enables both families to reduce the cost of marriage by avoiding paying a dowry.
After the other girl in the arrangement was killed by her own husband, Hameya's husband began to torture her in revenge and eventually killed her.
He is on the run from police and her father had been detained for questioning, said police spokesman Naqibullah Amini.
Hameya's husband, whom officials said was aged between 20 and 30, already had at least one wife, according to Lailuma Noorzad, head of the provincial women's affairs department.
The legal marriage age in Afghanistan is 16 for girls and 18 for boys, according to the United Nations.
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But the traditional practice of marrying children still persists in the conservative country, largely due to poverty and insecurity.
According to a recent UN report, at least one in three Afghan girls is married before they turn 18.
Child trafficking result of normalization of pedophilia
As child sex trafficking reaches epidemic levels, one expert has claimed that “moral fluidity” and lack of truth is behind the problem.
Expert and speaker Jaco Booyens, a director and producers who sister was trafficked as a child, said that the normalization of pedophilia and decline in morals are all having an effect on the rise of child sex trafficking.
“I was the guy looking for his sister. I was the guy who saw when she came home and she tried to commit suicide. I’m the guy who had to deal with it—me and my brother and my mom,” Booyens said at the High School Leadership Summit.
“Now we have things such as, ‘Hey there’s some people that love to have sex with children, deal with it,’” he said.
“No, I’m not going to deal with it, I’m going to fight it.”
