August 15 marks one year since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Since then the economy has spiralled into decline and families are increasingly resorting to selling young girls into forced marriages.
In a slum on the outskirts of Kabul, Fatima says that extreme hunger drove her to sell her three-year-old daughter, Farosa, into marriage for 150,000 Afghanis (equivalent to just over €1,600). When Farosa is ten, she will marry and leave the family home.
“My heart just can’t accept this” Fatima told FRANCE 24. “How can I send this ten-year-old girl away to another house?”
“It was the hardest decision of my life,” said Farosa’s father, a former street seller forced out of work by the Taliban. “Instead of seeing them dead I would rather see them alive. That’s why I sold my daughter.”
Click on the player above to watch our special report
