according to Afghan tradition is to be paid by the father. A study in Jordan indicated that 26 percent of reported cases of domestic violence were

common.

According to Mrs. Habiba, the second grade teacher, and Mrs. Q’rmrun, the principal, over two-thirds of the nine-year-old girls sitting on the stone floor in a classroom an hour from Tora Bora were either already married or soon to become wives. Almost all of the older children were married, and only about one-third of the children who attended school in second grade continued to sixth grade. Social convention, rather than lack of opportunity, is the real bar to education for female Afghan refugee children.

Child marriage in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a traditional way of arranging marriages that is centuries old. Two children are married and then sent back to live with their parents until puberty. Girls would often live with their mothers-in-law until they started to menstruate, and the men they married would not only be well known to the family; they would often be the same age as the girls. But a combination of war, privation and disassociation over the past 25 years has eroded social norms of Afghan refugees.

Salima, a 10-year-old girl in second grade, will be marrying a 60-year-old man in five months. She says she will be happy to marry Iqbal. When asked why, Salima said: “Iqbal’s children already have wives to help them and Iqbal says the only thing I will have to do is cook and wash for him and keep him warm at night. It will be better than taking care of my four older brothers and my younger brother and sister.” She will not return to school.