GENEVA - The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child today condemned Afghanistan's de facto authorities, deploring their adoption of a new decree that legitimises child marriage and treats a girl's silence as consent, calling it a grave and systematic violation of international human rights law.
"Child marriage, where at least one party is under 18, constitutes a harmful practice and as a form of forced marriage, given that children inherently lack the capacity to give full, free and informed consent to marriage," the Committee recalled its joint General Recommendation (official interpretations of human rights treaties) with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Decree No.18 (2026), issued by Afghanistan's de facto authorities, separates girls who have reached puberty and are married and uses this division to legitimise the marriage of girls upon reaching puberty. The Decree further provides that a girl's silence upon reaching puberty may be interpreted as consent to marriage.
"Puberty cannot be considered a basis for adulthood or legal capacity to marry," the Committee said, describing the provision as wholly incompatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"Child marriage constitutes not just a harmful practice but a fundamental violation of rights. It exposes girls to heightened risks of violence, exploitation, early and forced pregnancy, interrupted education, and long-term physical and psychological harm," the Committee added.
"Any legal framework that normalises or facilitates the marriage of children violates their rights, undermines their inherent dignity and deprives them of their autonomy and future opportunities," the Committee warned.
The Committee, composed of 18 independent child rights experts, further expressed serious concern that this Decree forms part of a broader pattern of discriminatory measures by the de facto authorities, including a ban on girls' secondary and higher education.
"These measures have deprived millions of Afghan girls of their fundamental rights, weakened their future economic and social participation, and deepened poverty and inequality across the country," the experts said.
The Committee called upon Afghanistan's de facto authorities to immediately repeal all measures that violate the rights of children, to unequivocally prohibit child marriage, and to restore the rights of all girls to education, protection, equality, and full participation in society, in accordance with Afghanistan's obligations under international human rights law and the Child Rights Convention and its Optional Protocols.
