Mick Hartley

From the Times – Taliban legalise child marriage for girls as young as nine:

The Taliban have legalised child marriage and declared that the silence of a “virgin girl” who has reached puberty can be interpreted as marital consent.

According to an official document titled Principles of Separation Between Spouses, the government of Afghanistan has effectively removed the fixed minimum marriage age for girls by linking marriage eligibility to puberty.

It contains a provision that states the new interpretation of marital consent. In girls, puberty usually begins between the ages of eight and thirteen. The minimum age for puberty is nine, according the largest and oldest Sunni school of Islamic law.

Previously the legal age for marriage was 16 for girls and 18 for boys, according to Afghanistan’s 1977 Civil Code. Girls below 16 could be married with the permission of her father or a judge. Marriage of girls below 15 was criminalised in the landmark 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women law.

“Under the new law, that age limit is removed,” Horia Mosadiq, director of the Conflict Analysis Network, said. “If a girl reaches puberty at the age of nine or ten, she is considered of a legal age to marry.”

Aisha, Mohammed’s third wife, was reportedly nine years old when the marriage was consummated – and Mohammed was the perfect man., so….