The Taliban’s latest family law marks another devastating step in the systematic dismantling of women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan. Presented as a regulation on marriage and separation, the new decree has drawn international alarm because of what it effectively permits: the legal normalisation of child marriage, the weakening of consent, and the further confinement of Afghan women within a deeply unequal family system.

At the centre of the controversy is the Taliban’s treatment of puberty as a threshold for marriage, rather than maintaining a clear minimum legal age. This is especially dangerous in a society where poverty, displacement, patriarchal customs and lack of education already expose girls to early and forced marriage. By linking marital eligibility to puberty, the law removes one of the most basic protections available to children: the recognition that they are not adults and cannot meaningfully consent to a life-altering contract.

Even more troubling is the provision under which a girl’s silence can be interpreted as consent. In any context, silence is an unsafe and inadequate basis for consent. In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where girls are denied education, mobility, legal support and public voice, it becomes even more coercive. A girl surrounded by male guardians, religious authorities and family pressure may remain silent because she is afraid, powerless, uninformed, or simply unable to resist. To transform that silence into legal approval is to erase her agency entirely.

The Taliban has claimed that it has outlawed forced marriage and that its rules conform to Islamic law. But the practical effect of the decree is the opposite. It gives fathers and male guardians greater control over girls’ marital futures while narrowing the ability of women and girls to challenge unwanted marriages. It also restricts the grounds on which women can seek divorce, making separation dependent on conditions that are difficult to prove and often controlled by male-dominated courts.

This law must be understood within the wider architecture of Taliban rule since 2021. Afghan girls have already been banned from secondary and higher education. Women have been pushed out of most employment, excluded from many public spaces, and subjected to restrictions on movement, dress, speech and civic participation. The new family law does not stand alone; it is part of a broader system that seeks to reduce women and girls to dependency inside the household.

The danger for Afghan girls is immediate. When education is closed, marriage becomes one of the few socially accepted paths left for families under economic stress. When employment is denied, girls are seen as financial burdens rather than future earners. When courts are controlled by a regime that prioritises male guardianship, a child bride has almost no realistic path to protection. In such conditions, child marriage is not merely a cultural practice; it becomes a tool of social control.

The consequences are severe and long-lasting. Child marriage exposes girls to early pregnancy, domestic violence, school exclusion, psychological trauma and lifelong economic dependency. It increases health risks for both young mothers and their children. It cuts girls off from friendships, education and personal development at the very moment when they should be protected and allowed to grow. Once trapped in marriage, many girls lose any possibility of shaping their own futures.

The law also deepens Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. Families facing hunger, debt and displacement may feel greater pressure to marry off daughters early. With legal barriers weakened, exploitative arrangements become easier to justify. The Taliban’s decree therefore does not simply reflect conservative social attitudes; it creates a legal environment in which the sale, exchange and coercive marriage of girls can become more entrenched.

International condemnation has been swift, but condemnation alone is insufficient. The United Nations and rights groups have warned that the law undermines children’s safety, women’s autonomy and basic equality. More than 100 rights organisations have demanded its repeal. Yet the Taliban has repeatedly shown that it is willing to absorb criticism while continuing to formalise gender repression.

The international response must therefore move beyond statements of concern. Humanitarian aid must prioritise girls at risk of forced marriage, widows, female-headed households and displaced families. Afghan women’s organisations, especially those operating in exile or through underground networks, need sustained support. Countries engaging with the Taliban must make women’s and girls’ rights central to any diplomatic or economic contact, rather than treating them as a secondary humanitarian issue.

At the same time, the world must avoid framing Afghan girls only as victims. The Taliban’s restrictions are designed precisely to make them invisible: out of schools, out of workplaces, out of public life and now increasingly without legal control over their own marriages. Resisting that erasure means preserving their voices, documenting abuses, supporting escape and protection mechanisms, and refusing to normalise Taliban rule as ordinary governance.

The new child marriage law is not merely a legal change. It is an attempt to redefine girlhood itself. Under this framework, a girl can be denied school, denied public life, denied meaningful consent, and then bound into marriage before she has the power to understand or resist it. That is not family law. It is the legal architecture of gender oppression.

Afghanistan’s girls are being pushed into silence by decree. The world’s responsibility is to ensure that silence is not mistaken for consent, and that the Taliban’s repression is not mistaken for law.