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Protect Innocence: End the Sale of Afghan Girls

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Impact: Afghanistan

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This campaign will collect all funds raised by May 11, 2024 at 11:45 AM EDT

Help Too Young to Wed provide vital food and financial support to families with vulnerable girls and put girls in school, stopping child marriage.


After more than two and a half years of unprecedented gender apartheid, too many families are plunging into poverty and facing the impossible choice of selling a daughter or starving the family. Women–including widows–are often forbidden from working. Girls are unable to go to school past sixth grade. These factors are contributing to Afghanistan’s economic collapse. Around 90% of Afghans are reportedly going hungry today. The consequences for girls couldn’t be worse. A bride price of 150,000 Afghanis (about $2000) can feed an entire family for a year. This is why we’re seeing a 500% spike in child marriages in recent years.  

Your donation will help Too Young To Wed’s comprehensive approach to ending child marriage, which is helping hundreds of families, including the ones featured here.

TYTW has a holistic approach to supporting these families. Thanks to YOUR SUPPORT, last year we provided more than 1 million meals to families facing food insecurity – a key driver of child marriage . Once a family’s immediate needs are met, girls’ families can enroll in vocational training, like carpet weaving and poultry farming, as a means of establishing self-sufficiency and long-term financial security.

Saliha, one of TYTW’s beneficiaries recently featured in a Washington Post OpEd written by TYTW , was sold into marriage at age 7. “I sold my daughter due to poverty and hunger to save the life of the others,” her father told us. “I feel guilty but I had no other choice.” Thanks to the intervention of the TYTW team who worked with the two families and local faith leaders, the marriage was annulled and Saliha is now enrolled in school.

Saliha, now age 10, working on homework with her father.

What can your gift do?

Your support of Too Young to Wed will help families on the brink by providing for their immediate and long-term needs–food, education, employment and self sufficiency. Your gifts help: 

  • Protect girls from violence: When a girl is forced into marriage, she is robbed of her bodily autonomy, her opportunity to complete her education, and her physical and emotional wellbeing. She is subjected to early, forced, and frequent sexual relations, regardless of her own physical limitations, and more prone to serious health complications and injuries.
  • Increase girls’ lifespans: Child mothers under age 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their twenties.
  • Improve infant and child health: Infants born to child mothers are at higher risk for health complications.
  • Empower lifelong change: Position families for greater economic security through a suite of market-ready livelihood opportunities.

You’re also driving generational change -- as each girl who evades child marriage is more likely to prevent her own children from marrying early. Thank you for your support!

Why Afghanistan?

As media coverage of Afghanistan fades, conditions continue to worsen under the Taliban. Restrictions on banks and rising food prices have left families financially struggling to meet their most basic needs. The United Nations warned that a million children could die imminently of malnutrition without intervention. 

Our team is working in several provinces, conducting surveys to identify the most vulnerable families, particularly widows. It’s not clear how the Taliban expect widows to feed their children when they’re forbidden from working. We also work to rectify these bans whenever possible, one community at a time.

Khumari, 13, was sold into marriage by her father. Her fiance, who works in Iran, has already paid about $2,000 of the $3,400 USD he will pay for her. Though Khumari wants to go to school like her younger sisters, her fiance has forbidden her. TYTW is now working to annul her marriage.

Last year alone, TYTW prevented the forced marriage of thousands of girls through case management and family child protection agreements. We provided sensitization dialogues and training for 5,000 Afghan families, local elders, community members and de-facto authorities explaining the detrimental effects child marriages have on girls’ physical and emotional well-being as well as the broader social fabric. Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely than women to die in childbirth, and their babies are often born premature.

Earthquake Devastation

Ninety percent of the nearly 3,000 victims in the earthquakes that struck Herat province last October were women and girls, because without access to jobs or school, they’re stuck in their homes all day. 

Aziza with her daughters, left to right: Fawzia (3), Razia (6), and twins Shukriya(8) and Rouzia (8).

Aziza, 27, has four daughters and is raising them on her own. Widowed when her husband was caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the Afghan army, Aziza struggles to make ends meet and earns 40 Afghanis ($0.5 USD) a day spinning wool. Her house collapsed during the earthquake and now she and her family live in a tent. Aziza says, “If the situation doesn’t improve, I’ll be forced to sell one of my daughters.”

In December 2023, TYTW visited the Shahrak-e-Sabz settlement and counted 118 girls who had already been sold as child brides and another 116 families with intentions to do the same. TYTW is currently working to cancel those 118 marriages and bring financial stability to these families.

Selling Organs Out of Desperation: One Kidney Village

In northwestern Afghanistan, near the town of Herat, so many residents of Sufi-Abad have sold their kidneys that it has become widely known as “One Kidney Village.” Here, most homes lack electricity, water, heating systems, and even stoves.

Organ harvesting has catastrophic consequences, but many families feel they have no other choice. In the above photos are Alida, who is 20 years old, sitting with her children, Mohammad Yusuf (7), Benyamin (5), and Asma (3). Alida had planned on selling one of her kidneys to provide for her family and even went as far as scheduling the operation.

That’s when TYTW intervened, enabling Alida to cancel the operation and instead enroll in tailor training. TYTW provides food assistance for her family and thanks to the training, Alida can make clothes and earn 500-600 Afghanis per week. She says, “My life has improved. Before we had nothing to eat…now we eat rice, potatoes, red beans. We also have gas to eat food.” Alida hopes to open her own store in the future and her husband, Mohammad Awaz who is a daily worker, supports her in this endeavor. Next year, her oldest son will go to school.

Too Young to Wed’s Mission

Led by renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and activist Stephanie Sinclair, the mission of Too Young To Wed (TYTW) is to empower girls and end child marriage globally.

While child marriage occurs in almost all countries, and is not exclusive to any particular religion or society, TYTW focuses its programming in areas where child marriage is most egregious and underreported.

Learn more at Too Young to Wed's website: www.tooyoungtowed.org.

Sumaya (8) is one of seven children being raised by her widowed mother, Mahjooba. Sumaya’s family is now enrolled in TYTW’s Parwana program, where they receive essential support and educational opportunities–shielding them from the looming threat of forced marriage. 


 


 


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Updates 3

Jessica Tirado-McKinney6 months ago

Eid Mubarak from Too Young to Wed

Dear Friends,

Thank you for standing with Too Young to Wed (TYTW). Together, we're creating a brighter, safer future for many of the world's most vulnerable girls and their families. Let us continue to unite against child marriage and protect the dreams of every girl. 

As we celebrate Eid al-Fitr, we extend our heartfelt thanks to all who have supported TYTW’s initiatives, including our current campaign Protect Innocence: End the Sale of Afghan Girls. Your generosity in these blessed days brings strength to our mission to empower girls and end child marriage.

Eid Mubarak!

The TYTW Team


Jessica Tirado-McKinney7 months ago

May your blessings abound as you transform lives through your generosity in this Lailatul Qadr (Night of Power)


A Salaam Alikum brothers and sisters,

We hope that all of you experienced a blessed Ramadan. 


As we draw near to Lailatul Qadr (the Night of Power), let’s open our hearts and extend our compassion to ensure that those fasting in marginalized communities have enough to eat. We encourage you to consider generously donating to TYTW’s initiative Protect Innocence: End the Sale of Afghan Girls | LaunchGood and earn Sadaqah Jareyah (continuous rewards) by spreading awareness among your family and friends. Your act of kindness provides crucial support to more than 15,000 at-risk Afghans currently benefiting from TYTW's Parwana Program, including girls like Sediqa. 


Eight-year-old Sediqa is one of five girls in her family who were sold into marriage. Sediqa’s father, Shaistal, at the age of 42, left home in Badghis province with his wife and children in the hope of finding relief from war and drought. They had heard, falsely, they could receive assistance at Shahrak-e-Sabz camp. Shaistal quickly fell into debt while trying to provide for his family. Desperate, he resorted to selling one of his kidneys to a man in need. However, he soon fell ill from an infection and accrued even more debt to cover the resulting hospital bills. Ultimately, he felt he had no other option but to sell his daughters. During a survey of vulnerable families, TYTW promptly enrolled Sediqa’s family in its programming to safeguard Sediqa and her sisters, and provide their family with immediate food, vocational training, and livelihood opportunities.


Your generous Sadaqah/Zakaat can help Sediqa, her siblings, and thousands of girls in similar situations to stay safe and provide them with the necessary support to build a better future. TYTW’s Parwana Program provides case management and family sensitization on child marriage, food to help meet immediate needs, education programming for girls, and start-up capital and livelihoods training to many of the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach Afghan girls and their families. 


Thank you for your generosity and for actively contributing to the protection of girls from mistreatment.  


With gratitude, 

The Too Young to Wed (TYTW) Team 


Jessica Tirado-McKinney7 months ago

Help End Child Marriage this Ramadan

Benazir, 10, seen here making bread.


Dear Friends,


Ramadan Mubarak!


We at Too Young to Wed (TYTW) are reaching out with profound thanks for your generous support in helping to protect Afghan girls from child marriage.


Your kindness plays a vital role in our mission to combat child marriage and protect girls like Benazir, pictured above. At just seven years old, Benazir was sold into marriage by her father. Burdened with the impossibility of feeding his eight children, her father saw no other choice. However, the generosity of supporters like you allowed TYTW to step in, and we successfully worked with the family and community leaders to annul Benazir’s marriage. Additionally, through our holistic family support programming, TYTW provided her father with vocational support to open his own shop -- bolstering the family’s self-reliance and paving the way for Benazir to pursue her dreams of education instead of being bound by the chains of child marriage.


Your generosity not only transforms lives like Benazir’s but also resonates as a ray of hope in our collective fight to end child marriage. Throughout this holy time, we encourage you to share our mission with your friends and family. Spreading the word about TYTW’s current campaign significantly amplifies the impact of your support, bringing us closer to a world where every young girl has the opportunity to thrive. Together, we can create lasting change for so many deserving girls just like Benazir.


In Solidarity,

The TYTW Team

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