Meet Gulalay, a beneficiary of the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage
For more than 1,200 days, Afghan girls have been banned from attending school beyond Year 6. Boys’ education has continued under the Taliban restrictions. Today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world to prohibit access to girls’ education over the age of 12 and for women. 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since 2021. Seventeen-year-old Gulalay was only fourteen years old when the ban came into place.
“After the closing of schools, I was told now I must get married because I have nothing else to do. When I heard these words as a child, my spirit was wounded, and my heart broke. I felt terrible, unsure if anyone could understand or comprehend my state. My childhood came to an end.”
Secondary education has proven to be strongly protective against child marriage. Girls with at least a secondary education are significantly less likely to marry early, and if all girls completed secondary school, child marriage could decrease by approximately 66%.
“A few years after marriage, I fell ill and my husband migrated, leaving me alone. Solitude and financial hardship made life unbearable,” Gulalay says, “Every morning, I pray for the announcement of schools reopening. I fall asleep hoping to wake up to the end of darkness. Every year, I buy books and contact my teachers. They still give me hope.”
Gulalay clings to the idea of a better world for women and girls. She continues to read books, writes, and holds onto the dream of education for her daughter. She envisions a future where her child becomes a journalist, breaking free from the cycle that bound her.
“I haven't forgotten my dreams; I read books, write my life story, and I still have the dream of education for my daughter, so she can become a journalist instead of me.”
*Names have been changed.
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6 JUNE 2025