http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080308/wl_afp/womenafghanistanwomenrights_080308124425
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai called Saturday on his countrymen to stop forcing their under-aged daughters to marry, especially to men several decades older, and to allow them to be educated.
Speaking at a ceremony attended by about 300 women to mark International Women’s Day, Karzai also said threats from a Taliban-led insurgency were keeping girls out of school.
“I call on religious leaders, tribal elders and particularly men: stop forcing your under-aged girls to marry, stop marrying them to old men,” he said, adding later he was referring in particular to men aged above 50.
Up to 80 percent of Afghan women face forced marriage, and nearly two-thirds are married before the legal age of 16, according to the United Nations.
Karzai also stressed the importance of educating Afghan girls, who were denied schooling under the 1996-2001 Taliban government.
“In parts of Afghanistan, Afghan girls can’t go to schools because of the terrorism problem,” he said. “In other places, like places without terrorism problems, girls are not allowed to go to schools.”
Some Afghan families, particularly in rural areas, do not see the need to educate girls.
Thousands of girls have enrolled in classes since the ouster of the Taliban, but there remains only one girl for every three to four boys in secondary school, the UN has said.
Some of the women at the meeting appealed to Karzai to find ways to end the Taliban insurgency, which was at its deadliest last year with more than 6,000 people killed – most of them rebels though hundreds of civilians also died.
“Bring us peace, we’re losing our husbands, sons and brothers,” said one women, Setara Achekzai.
“It’s too much. Stop it, we want peace, we want security,” said another woman, Ramzia, adding that she lost her police husband and a brother in a Taliban attack in Kandahar.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 women, including Karzai’s mother, gathered in Kandahar city to call on the president to help bring peace.
