Afghanistan: The Taliban Decree That Turns Girls’ Silence into Consent to Marriage

There is a profound difference between a law that protects a person and a law that turns that person into someone else's property. It is a difference that concerns freedom, dignity, and the right to choose one's own future. In Afghanistan, the new Decree No. 18 issued by the Taliban regime risks erasing that distinction altogether.

According to concerns raised by Amnesty International Italy, the measure published on May 14, 2026 introduces provisions that, under the appearance of legal regulation, ultimately strengthen patriarchal control over Afghan women and girls. In practice, it legitimizes child and early marriage while drastically limiting the ability of girls to oppose an unwanted union.

The most disturbing aspect of the decree is the notion that a girl's silence may be interpreted as consent to marriage. In any legal system that recognizes fundamental human rights, consent must be a free, explicit, and informed expression of individual will. Silence, particularly when it comes from a minor living in a context of strong family and social subordination, cannot be considered a free choice.

Yet this is precisely the direction in which the decree moves. In a society where women have been progressively excluded from education, employment, and public life, claiming that a girl is free to choose through silence means completely ignoring the coercive environment in which that "choice" is made.

Law cannot be analyzed by isolating a single provision from the context in which it operates. A person deprived of education, employment opportunities, freedom of movement, and participation in social life is not in a position to exercise genuine self-determination. When dissent may lead to severe family, economic, or social consequences, silence is not consent. More often than not, it is fear.

In recent years, Afghanistan has become a symbol of the systematic erosion of women's rights. Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, girls have been excluded from secondary schools and universities, many professions have been closed to women, access to public spaces has been restricted, and strict codes of conduct have been imposed. Numerous international organizations have described this situation as a form of institutionalized gender-based persecution.

Within this broader framework, child marriage is not an isolated phenomenon. Rather, it becomes one of the mechanisms through which control over women is consolidated. A girl who cannot study, work, or independently build her future inevitably becomes more vulnerable to decisions imposed by family members or religious authorities.

From the perspective of international law, the issue is extremely serious.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) requires States to eliminate discriminatory practices that restrict women's autonomy.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child protects minors from harmful practices that may compromise their physical, psychological, and social development.

Furthermore, numerous United Nations bodies have repeatedly affirmed that child and forced marriages constitute violations of human rights and represent a form of gender-based violence.

The consequences of such marriages are often devastating. Girls married at an early age are more likely to abandon their education permanently, experience domestic violence, face early pregnancies with significant health risks, and live in conditions of economic dependence. Marriage thus ceases to be the beginning of an adulthood freely chosen and instead becomes a cage from which escape is difficult.

What is perhaps most striking is the transformation of legal language into an instrument of oppression. Law exists to guarantee freedom, limit the arbitrary exercise of power, and protect the most vulnerable. When it is instead used to justify the subordination of part of the population, it loses its original purpose and becomes a tool of control.

The Afghan case also raises a question for the entire international community: how far is the world willing to tolerate the systematic erosion of women's rights in the name of state sovereignty or local traditions?

Defending human rights does not mean imposing a Western cultural model. It means affirming that certain fundamental principles belong to every human being, regardless of where they are born. Among these principles are personal freedom, the right to education, equality between women and men, and the ability to choose whom to love and whether to marry.

When a girl cannot freely say "no," there can be no genuine "yes."

And perhaps this is the most important issue raised by the new Taliban decree: we are not merely witnessing a legal amendment. We are witnessing an attempt to transform the deprivation of freedom into a legal norm. When silence is elevated to the status of consent, the risk is that law will cease to protect individuals and begin to legitimize their subordination.

Source:
https://www.amnesty.it/afghanistan-un-nuovo-decreto-legittima-i-matrimoni-precoci/