Mobile phone helps couples elope in Nangarhar: Imrani

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Telephonic contacts between boys and girls help them arrange elopement and such incidents are on the rise in eastern Nangarhar province, an official said on Tuesday.

Anisa Imrani, the women’s affairs director, during an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News regretted religious scholars were not playing their role in controlling growing incidents of elopement.

She said as many as 220 incidents of violence against women took place this year including 80 cases in which girls fled homes.

“Domestic violence, elopements, denial of inheritance, breaking of engagements and other forms of violence were among the incidents,” she added.

Imrani said increasing telephonic conversation between boys and girls and forced marriages were behind the surge in elopements.

She asked family members and elders to be careful while allowing their girls to use mobile phones and urged parents to keep watch on their children.

About forced marriages, she lambasted religious scholars for not only keeping mum over such marriages but helping families tie knots by force.

But religious scholars denied attending marriages held against the consent of families.

Mohammad Ghani Farooqi, a religious scholar, told Pajhwok Afghan News: “Whenever I have been invited to a house for Nikah, I ask elders to know the consent of the couple,” he said.

But civil society activist Asadullah Karawai said families should know they were ruing the lives of their daughters by subjecting them to forced marriage.

He expressed concern about increased telephonic contacts between girls and boys, asking families not to allow their adult girls to use mobile phones.

nh/ma

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