Horror in Afghanistan a year later as children are sold into marriage while families starve

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A year after the disastrous pullout that saw desperate people clinging to the outside of planes to escape, Afghanistan faces a food crisis, girls receiving less food than boys< /p> Shekeba and her family have endured many years of hardship (

Image: Sacha Myers/Save the Children

Afghan children are sold into marriage and forced to work as slaves to help their desperate families.

A year after the Taliban took power, nearly 20 million people, almost half of the population, are facing starvation.

One in eight children go to bed hungry, with girls eating less than boys.

The departure of Western troops plunged Afghanistan into a humanitarian crisis, leaving the economy on the ground, a crippling drought and girls barred from going to school.

Meena, 12, was sold to an older man for marriage because her mother Sadia, 30, needed money to feed her three other children.

Sadia, whose story is featured in a Save the Children report, received half the money before the wedding, but her father Ahmed disappeared with the rest. Meanwhile, Nagina, a 13-year-old orphan, has been forced into child labor to survive.

Nagina went to school and dreamed of becoming a doctor before the Taliban returned.

Girls get less food than boys under the Taliban (

Picture:

Sacha Myers/Save the Children)

As the economy went into freefall, her older sister Yasmin, 35, had to make the difficult decision to take Nagina out of school...