CCPR/C/126/D/2685/2015 of a young girl will mobilize a network around her to protect her and to ensure that she will not be able to enter any relationship.” While not ruling out that affairs outside marriage – albeit very rarely – were possible in Afghanistan, the Board found it unlikely that the authors would have been able to have sexual intercourse at F.M.’s home several times, thus exposing themselves to an obvious risk of being caught and subjected to serious sanctions by both their families and the authorities. When interviewed on 18 February 2013, R.M. declared that they would both have been killed if they had been caught when he visited F.M. It seems unlikely that the authors would run that risk, considering in particular the fact that neither of them knew when F.M.’s family would return home. Neighbours could have discovered that R.M. was visiting F.M. at her home while the rest of her family was away. R.M. further stated that they had both regretted their first act of sexual intercourse, for which reason it seems unlikely that they would have do it again. Both authors declared that they kept a low profile after having had sexual intercourse for the second time because they were scared and worried. 4.9 According to the Country Marriage Pack – Afghanistan, published by the Refugee Documentation Centre (Ireland) in April 2015, even though, in principle, there is freedom to choose one’s own spouse, marriages in Afghanistan are typically entered into following an agreement between two families. The parties have typically never met before the wedding, and would never refuse an arranged marriage, as they would not oppose the wishes of their families. For that reason also it seems unlikely that the authors had even initiated a relationship, much less initiated a sexual relationship, considering the general perception of marriage as an agreement between two families or groups that has nothing to do with the persons’ concerned own desires. 4.10 The State party further points to inconsistencies in the authors’ statements as to their departure from Afghanistan and the birth of their son. According to the authors, they lived in Istanbul for about six months and then in a room in a house in Athens for about a year, and their agent paid the rent all this time. It is hardly credible that one or more human traffickers paid the authors’ rent – and probably also food – for one and a half years altogether. Moreover, it seems peculiar that neither author has been able to provide any details of the areas in which they lived in Istanbul and Athens. R.M. declared to the Danish police on 18 December 2012 and to the Immigration Service on 18 February 2013 that the Greek police had taken the authors to a refugee camp where they had been registered, fingerprinted and photographed. However, there are no Eurodac hits for the authors in Greece. It also seems peculiar that, when interviewed by the Immigration Service on 23 April 2013, R.M. was unable to state the time of birth of his son. He was even unable to state the time of year, or whether it had been hot or cold. However, he was able to state with certainty that the family had first attempted to leave Turkey for Greece when their son was 20 days old. 4.11 The Refugee Appeals Board could not regard F.M.’s statement on the risk of prosecution or her statement on her relationship with the male author as facts. According to the Afghanistan 2015 Human Rights Report, published by the United States Department of State on 13 April 2016, which was available when the Board refused to reopen the authors’ asylum on 3 June 2016, “in 2012 the Attorney General’s Office ordered a halt to the prosecution of women for “running away,” which is not a crime under the law.” However, as the Board could not consider the authors’ statements on their situation to be facts, including the statement on F.M.’s escape from her family, the State party finds it irrelevant to comment any further on this matter. 4.12 The documents produced by the authors were translated at the request of the Refugee Appeals Board, for which reason the Board was familiar with their contents. The Board found that no particular importance could be attached to the document produced by R.M. on the circumstances of his brother’s death. The document appears to confirm that R.M.’s brother was wounded on 12 July 2011 and subsequently died. It also appears that three people were arrested in connection with the incident. The document appears to have been issued on 24 October 2012. The Board found it odd that R.M.’s brother was killed more than a year after the authors’ departure from Afghanistan. Moreover, it also seemed odd that the document was only issued more than a year after R.M.’s brother was killed. According to R.M., his family was in Pakistan at that time. 4.13 The other document, which appears to be a statement from the council of elders in the authors’ village and was produced only in connection with the communication to the 7