Afghan girls:- The hardships and heartbreak of three years of Taliban rule are reflected in the shining brown eyes of schoolgirl Parwana Malik. And on the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, advocates say Washington should take a harder look at the plight of countless young girls who have suffered under the hard-line regime.

In 2021, as the last U.S. troops were leaving after two decades in the country, Malik’s father sold her into marriage to a much older man.

She was 9 years old — young even by local standards, which see many Afghan girls married off in their teens.

In 2021, the U.N. Children’s Fund sounded the alarm about a drastic rise in child marriage as Western forces and aid organizations withdrew, and as desperate Afghan families lost the safety net those groups provided. Some betrothals, they said, involved infant girls as young as 20 days old.

And local media have reported that girls as young as 7 have been married off to Taliban commanders.

“What the Taliban is doing to women and girls is absolutely a crime against humanity,” said Stephanie Sinclair, a photographer and founder of the nonprofit group Too Young to Wed. “And Afghan girls and women inside the country are really suffering, unlike anywhere else in the world.”

Earlier this month at an event marking the anniversary, a Taliban official gave a defiant speech criticizing foreign interference.

The new leadership “eliminated internal differences and expanded the scope of unity and cooperation in the country,” said Deputy Prime Minister Maulvi Abdul Kabir. “No one will be allowed to interfere in internal affairs, and Afghan soil will not be used against any country.”

Neither he nor the other three speakers at the event spoke about the day-to-day struggles of civilians. Women — including female journalists — were barred from the event. And this month, the regime passed a law that restricts women’s movements and requires them to cover their bodies and silence their voices in public.

The Taliban have recently imposed more restrictions on girls and women, including a ban on education past sixth grade. Parwana Malik, far right, is among a generation of Afghan girls who have fewer rights than their mothers did. (Too Young to Wed)

The U.N.’s human rights body condemned the law as “egregious” and demanded its repeal.

"The newly adopted law on the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan cements policies that completely erase women's presence in public, silencing their voices and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Taliban are not officially recognized as Afghanistan's leaders by the U.N. or by most countries. Yet this regime has been slowly gaining recognition. China this year became the first country to accept credentials from a Taliban-appointed ambassador. And Russia’s foreign minister recently called the Taliban “the real power” in the country.

Rights groups are pressing Washington to speak out for Afghan girls like Parwana Malik, who was sold into marriage after the Taliban took power. Restrictive policies leave girls and women with few skills and options outside the home. (Too Young to Wed)

“We never removed our embassy from there, and neither did the People's Republic of China,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “The Afghan ambassador presented his credentials to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing along with other ambassadors. Kazakhstan recently decided to remove them from the list of terrorist organizations. We're planning to do the same."

Washington has refused to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government, and has kept its distance, though the White House has repeatedly mentioned that it maintains leverage over the group and has “over the horizon” capabilities to strike.

U.S. President Joe Biden did not mention the Taliban in his statement this week marking the anniversary of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. He likes to describe Afghanistan as “the graveyard of empires” — so called because of the stubborn resistance to foreign influence by its lionized protectors.

Nonprofit group Too Young to Wed persuaded Parwana Malik’s elderly husband to return her to her family. Parwana, front right, is among seven sisters and one brother, not all of whom are pictured. (Too Young to Wed)

Near the top of that ladder is late resistance fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, dubbed the “Lion of the Panjshir.” The anti-Soviet guerrilla leader — slain by Taliban sympathizers in 2001 — is memorialized everywhere in the vivid green valley of that name. Panjshir was the last of the nation’s 34 provinces to fall in 2021.

From exile, Massoud’s eldest son now leads the nation’s resistance movement. This week, Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, argued that trampling the human rights of half of the population is not just bad policy but also bad politics.

“They do not represent the will of the population,” he said. “Afghanistan's youth, especially young girls, have dreams and aspirations no different from their peers around the globe.”

Vice President Kamala Harris also issued her own statement on the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal. Like Biden, she did not mention the regime’s dismal treatment of girls and women — though her campaign for her nation’s top job is a strong repudiation of the Taliban’s rule that girls cannot be schooled past sixth grade.

“She's quite the character,” Too Young to Wed founder Stephanie Sinclair says of Parwana Malik, who was sold into marriage at 9. Now 11, she is near the end of her academic career under harsh Taliban rule. She wants to be a teacher or a doctor, Sinclair said. (Too Young to Wed)

Republican presidential challenger Donald Trump also focused on the deaths of 13 American servicemembers in criticizing the Biden administration’s pullout.

"Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” he said. “And the fake news doesn't want to talk about it.”

Sinclair urged American leaders to focus not on the men in charge but on the female voices they have silenced, and to impose harsher consequences for it.

“I saw those statements, and I really think that we really need to put more accountability, make more accountability, for the Taliban about addressing their crimes,” she said.

She and other advocates are urging foreign powers to further squeeze the regime.

“Otherwise, we're inching towards normalization little by little,” she said. “The next thing we're going to hear is that primary schoolgirls are going to be out of school. … It's only going to get worse. It’s been clear that this is not Taliban 2.0. This is the original hardline stance that they had in the late '90s. And we really need to do better.”

And now, amid these dismal discussions: a plot twist.

Too Young to Wed persuaded Parwana’s aged husband to return her to her family. Her story inspired the group to launch a fund in her name, which now feeds about 1,000 Afghan families per month and provides essential supplies like blankets and infant supplies.

And Parwana is now back where she belongs, Sinclair says: in school.

“She's quite the character,” Sinclair said. “She has a lot of big opinions, and she wants to be a teacher or a doctor, and she wants to do something, and she's got the power to do it. … The problem is, she's not living in a society that is permitting it under this regime, and unfortunately, there are millions of Parwanas right now.”

And as Parwana nears sixth grade — where most girls worry not about husbands but schoolwork, friends and the gale-force winds of puberty — she carries a heavy burden on her young shoulders: the knowledge that, unless something changes, her education will soon end.

But in the few years she has left, her smile wide and deep brown eyes shining with hope and joy, she clutches something else close to her chest: schoolbooks. VOA/SP