Despite some advances in rights for women and girls in Afghanistan, young Afghani women can be married to another family to settle debts. According to some tribal law, after a man murders, he must give a woman in his family for marriage to the victim’s family, a practice which settles the blood feud in order to avoid retaliation from the victim’s family. Recently, the Shinwari tribe outlawed this practice and others which it deemed detrimental to women. The Women and Children Legal Research Foundation reports that about 500 marriages in Afghanistan are settling a blood feud. According to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Afghanistan, about forty percent of marriages are forced.
Compiled from: “Afghan Girls Traded for Debts, Blood Feuds,” Alisa Tang, Associated Press (reprinted in USA TODAY,) 9 July 2007.