Child bride has ears hacked off in Afghanistan

Girls at a safe house for battered women in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images

A former child bride has had her ears hacked off by her husband after he accused her of speaking to other men.

Zarina from Afghanistan got married at the age of 13 and her husband is on the run having attacked her, according to the Daily Mail.

The couple were sleeping at their home in the northern province of Balkh when he suddenly woke her up, bound her and mutilated her.

Having suffered the beating, she told the BBC: "I haven't committed any sin.
"I don't know why my husband did this to me."

Zarina said her husband had tried to stop her from seeing her parents, and that she wanted to divorce him.

"He is a very suspicious man and often accused me of talking to strange men when I went to visit my parents," she told Tolo News.

Sadly, her case is not an isolated on in Afghanistan.

Reza Gul, 20, had her nose sliced off by her husband in an attack in January last year.

Sadly, the domestic abuse victim's account is not a one-off.

Girls as young as six in Afghanistan are being forced to marry men old enough to be their grandfather and into a life of sexual slavery, beatings, pregnancies and death during childbirth, a charity said last month.

More than 12,000 girls under 15 will become child brides every day of 2017 around the world - or one every seven seconds.

The disturbing figures are revealed in exhaustive research and analysis carried out by the UK-based charity Save the Children, who predict 15 million schoolgirls of 15 or younger will marry in 2017.

UK aid workers highlight a shocking catalogue of cases where young married girls face domestic violence, abuse and rape.

In one, a six year-old girl is reported to have been 'sold' into marriage with a man more than 40 years older in exchange for a goat in Afghanistan while Afghans are also said to use the marriage of their pre-teenage-daughters to settle disputes.

Afghanistan's politicians have previously attempted to pass bills and amendments that would protect women from domestic abuse only to be pushed back or delayed.