Overview
- The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, made up of 18 independent experts, formally condemned Afghanistan’s Decree No. 18 for effectively legitimizing child marriage.
- Decree No. 18 uses a female child’s onset of puberty to authorize marriage and instructs that a girl’s silence after puberty will be treated as consent.
- The committee said puberty cannot confer legal capacity to give free and informed consent and found the decree incompatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and related UN guidance.
- The experts warned the decree fits a broader pattern of measures restricting girls’ and women’s rights in Afghanistan, cited bans on secondary and higher education, and urged immediate repeal and restoration of girls’ rights.
- The committee highlighted well-documented harms of child marriage — increased violence, exploitation, early pregnancy and interrupted education — and placed Afghanistan’s move in a global context where laws on child marriage are still changing.