It will take generations to change ingrained attitudes

Afghanistan is one of 45 countries where the marriage of girls under the age of 16 is common, according to the UN.

Such practices are now illegal under Afghan law, and it is no longer illegal for a woman to escape a brutal marriage. But, as I have discovered in my journeys over nearly three months in Afghanistan this year, when the law of the land clashes against tribal and village practice and custom, the bad old ways prevail too often.

The case I came across in Garmsir is one of the most concerning. At eight, she is one of the youngest brides recorded by the authorities since the Elimination of Violence Against Women became law two years ago.

Diplomatic sources told me they are "deeply angry" at their inability to act over this case - and the issue in general. This child has been betrayed by the local mullahs, her father and the British authorities.

Over the 10 years there have been big gains in women's rights in Afghanistan - particularly in education, public office and health care. But there is a long way to go, and the gains are likely to be reversed if the Taliban are given a role in national government in Kabul as part of a peace deal.

Aid organisations and NGOs have helped with advice, midwife and healthcare services, and promoted some 14 centres for abused women escaping violent marriages. This is still relatively meagre help for what is evidently a nationwide problem.

Only last month the BBC reported Taliban outside Herat held the guns for three women in burkas to shoot dead their uncle in a revenge killing in a display of public sadism.

Last month, too, I was talking to an Afghan friend when he received a call form his brother to say that a married couple, he a nurse and she a midwife, had been dragged from their car in Wardak province and had their throats cut by the Taliban. This, said the local Taliban, was because they had been trained by foreigners. That they were helping poor Afghans was irrelevant.

The abuse of underage brides contributes to high rates of maternal death - more than eleven per cent of all women giving birth in one village I came across, Khan Neshin. This is because the bodies of pubescent mothers are barely mature enough to give birth.

Attitudes to underage brides are ingrained in centuries of tradition, and will take generations of enlightened advice and help to change. This must be given long after the Nato troops go home, assuming Afghanistan hasn't fallen back to the bad old ways. I was given stark reminder of those when I spoke to a Hazara woman about her struggle to earn money for her seven children, whom her husband wouldn't support. "If he knew I was talking unveiled to a man, a foreigner, and a journalist" she said slowly looking me in the eye, "he would kill us both."