A six-year-old girl has been coerced into marrying a 55-year-old man in Afghanistan after her father allegedly sold her in exchange for a goat.
The husband Seyed Abdolkarim and the girl’s father have been arrested after a relative raised alarm about the wedding.
The father, who also allegedly received rice, tea, sugar and cooking oil for his daughter, said he and his family were desperate for food and he had one less mouth to feed after selling his daughter.
While the father insisted that the new husband of the girl had promised not to have sex with her until she turned 18, Abdolkarim reportedly took the girl to a relative’s house in Firozkoh, in Ghor province, pretending she was his daughter, where he was seen “undressing her at night” by a relative.
In a video released by news site The Observers local women can be seen hitting and admonishing the father during his arrest.
“No, she’s not my daughter, she’s my wife, her father gave her to me,” Abdolkarim told the relative who saw him, according to The Observers.
A friend of the relative then informed the local women’s rights bureau in Ghor province. The bureau has said it will pursue a divorce and make sure the father is stripped of his parental rights.
Courtesy: Daily Mail