MATERNAL DISPATCHES with Hollie McKay

Who is Buying? The Demand Side of Afghanistan’s Child Marriage Market

Hollie McKay

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0:00 | 13:20

The buyers in this market share one thing across every category: nobody is looking for them. Coverage of Afghanistan’s child marriage crisis is overwhelmingly supply-side. How many girls. How poor are the families. What do the Taliban edicts say? The buyers — the men whose demand makes the market function — receive almost no scrutiny. No government in the region faces meaningful pressure to investigate or prosecute the purchase of Afghan girls. Western donors have not conditioned their aid or diplomatic engagement on it.

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