United Nations expressed “grave concern” a couple of new regulation issued by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities on separation in marriage which incorporates provisions on little one marriage. File
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
The United Nations expressed “grave concern” on Thursday (Might 21, 2026) a couple of new regulation issued by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities on separation in marriage which incorporates provisions on little one marriage, saying the code additional entrenches discrimination in opposition to ladies and women.
The federal government rejected the accusations, saying the decree follows Islamic regulation and insisting the nation has already banned the compelled marriage of women.
Afghanistan’s Justice Ministry printed Decree No. 18 “on judicial separation of spouses” final week, which units out guidelines for separation of a married couple.
Amongst its most controversial provisions, it says that the silence of a woman reaching puberty could be interpreted as consent to marriage. It additionally features a part on the separation of women who attain puberty and are married, which “implies that little one marriage is permitted,” the United Nations Help Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) stated in an announcement.
“This undermines the precept of free and full consent and failing to safeguard the most effective pursuits of the kid,” it stated.
The decree stipulates {that a} marriage could be dominated invalid “if a father or grandfather has given a minor woman or boy with none dowry, not sufficient dowry or obscene embezzlement.” It additionally says {that a} woman given away in marriage by her father or grandfather to a person who “has not handled her with kindness or is well-known for his unhealthy selections…has the appropriate to method the court docket to cancel the wedding contract upon reaching puberty.”
Nonetheless, if a woman asks her husband for a divorce and he denies it, “then on this case, there aren’t any witnesses with the woman, the husband’s phrase is legitimate,” the brand new regulation says. She doesn’t want witnesses if she makes the request earlier than a decide.
Ladies and women already face widespread discrimination in Afghanistan, with legal guidelines dictating how they need to costume and behave. They’re banned from secondary faculty and universities and from most jobs, in addition to from practically all leisure actions, together with gyms, magnificence salons and even from public parks.
“Decree No. 18 is a part of a broader and deeply regarding trajectory wherein the rights of Afghan ladies and women are being eroded,” stated Georgette Gagnon, the U.N.’s Deputy Particular Consultant of the Secretary-Common and officer answerable for UNAMA.
Whereas the regulation permits for girls to separate from their husbands, it makes it a lot tougher for them to take action than it does for males.
The decree “operates in a deeply unequal framework: whereas males retain the unilateral proper to divorce, ladies should pursue advanced and restrictive judicial avenues to separate from a partner,” UNAMA stated. “This case reinforces structural discrimination and limits ladies’s autonomy in issues basic to their dignity, security, and well-being.” After seizing energy in Afghanistan following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-backed forces in 2021, the Taliban introduced sure restricted rights for girls, issuing a decree that included the appropriate for girls to an inheritance and to refuse marriage. Nonetheless, “successive decrees have undermined these protections,” UNAMA stated.
The myriad restrictions imposed by the federal government “have disadvantaged thousands and thousands of Afghan ladies and women of their proper to schooling, weakened financial participation, and deepened poverty, with long-term penalties for Afghanistan’s improvement,” it added.
The objections from “those that contradict the faith of Islam are usually not new and we must always not take note of them,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Afghan authorities, instructed the RTA state broadcaster in an interview.
Mujahid famous that Afghanistan’s supreme chief Hibatullah Akhundzada has already issued a earlier decree that bans the compelled marriage of women. Afghan courts and the nation’s ministry of vice and advantage have investigated hundreds of such instances previously yr alone, he stated, “which exhibits the Islamic Emirate’s concern for girls’s rights.”
Revealed – Might 22, 2026 08:22 am IST