AFGHANISTAN: Afghan Who Agreed to Trade His Daughter to End a Debt Says It Was Paid

After the publication of an article in The New York Times on Monday about an Afghan man who had agreed to give his 6-year-old daughter in marriage to pay off his debt to another man, the father called The Times and said the debt had been paid nearly a month ago by an anonymous donor.

The father, Taj Mohammad, who had fled the fighting in Helmand Province four years ago with his family and has been living in a refugee camp in Kabul, had borrowed $2,500 to pay for medical care for his wife and children, as well as for firewood. When the man he had borrowed from demanded his money back, Mr. Mohammad was unable to come up with the sum, he said.

After a traditional jirga, or extrajudicial proceeding, involving elders in the refugee camp, he agreed that if he could not pay the money back in a year, he would give his daughter in marriage to the lender's son. The case came to the attention of The Times this winter because Mr. Mohammed's 3-year-old son had frozen to death.

After hearing about the daughter's case through earlier news reports, a donor offered to pay the debt, but stressed that the donation's origin should remain private. Kimberley Motley, an American lawyer through whom the donor worked, said the transaction had taken place in early March. But Mr. Mohammad, for reasons that remained unclear and despite numerous conversations with reporters since then, did not tell The Times about it until after Monday's article.

As recently as in a telephone interview on Friday, when he was asked about any developments in the case, he did not mention the donation. Asked on Monday why he had not said anything about it, he gave no direct answer.

Potentially complicating matters was that the payment was made through a jirga, Afghanistan's unofficial justice system, which, while abided by in some cases, does not have the force of a formal proceeding in the courts. And it could be superseded by another jirga.

Ms. Motley, in an unusual step, chose to organize a jirga to undo the marriage commitment and repay the debt because the system is more expeditious and less intimidating than the courts to the impoverished displaced residents in the camps, she said. She acted as the jirga's chairwoman, although the councils are almost always convened and presided over by local elders.

She said she had been concerned that the money might not be used to buy back the girl, given the extreme poverty in the camps, so she was present when Mr. Mohammad gave the money to the lender. She had each side sign the document; those who could not read or write, like Mr. Mohammad, signed with thumbprints.

Ms. Motley said she had taken every step she could think of to try to ensure that the deal holds — including having a mullah present as well as elders from the camp and witnesses for each side.

“This is as good as it gets,” she said.

She said she had not publicized the jirga or the payment in deference to the donor's desire for discretion.

Still, some human rights experts, as well as Afghan law professors, questioned whether the two families would respect the jirga's decision.

“Is this sustainable? I cannot guarantee it,” said Ahmad Gul Wasiq, a law professor at Nangarhar University, who specializes in family disputes. “There's no guarantee that two years from now the lender won't show up with a bunch of armed men and take the girl. Since the foundation of the agreement is unofficial, then everything is unofficial.”

Mr. Mohammad's original commitment of his daughter, and its sanction by a jirga in the refugee camp, was illegal under Afghanistan's Elimination of Violence Against Women law, according to the United Nations human rights division in Kabul. However, the law is enforced only if the victim or her relatives file a complaint, which leaves open the possibility of such informal practices.

The United Nations director of human rights for Afghanistan, Georgette Gagnon, said both the initial use of the girl to pay a debt and the decision to turn to a jirga to undo it “showed the weakness in both the informal and official justice system when it comes to the protection of women and girls.”

The refugee camps in Kabul are rife with families in tough circumstances, and the Afghan government does little to address them — in part because some officials would rather have the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled fighting return home. Though it is illegal under national law, child marriage is not uncommon in the camps, and there are a number of cases of it among displaced families, according to the aid group Aschiana. The group works in several refugee camps, including the Charahi Qambar camp, where Mr. Mohammad's family lives.

Several aid groups deal with women's and children's issues in Afghanistan. In addition to Aschiana, they include Women for Afghan Women, which runs a network of shelters.