KABUL, Afghanistan — As a young girl, Zahra became consumed with the idea of a life of learning, seizing on every new opportunity that trickled to her isolated town in the western Afghan province of Ghor.

In a school drama, she performed the role of Parisa, a young girl barred from attending school by her conservative family. When an educational circus traveled through about three years ago, she was one of the enthusiastic participants, selected as one of three students among 70 to take her new juggling act to Kabul.

But within the short span of her life, she was bartered away.

When her mother was paralyzed and her father decided to marry again, Zahra, then around 11 years old, became part of the dowry, according to her father’s accounts to reporters. Then, about two years later, as a sixth grader, she was married off.

Last week, Zahra arrived at the central hospital in Ghor with burns over 90 percent of her body. She died six days later, on Saturday, in a Kabul hospital. She was four months pregnant, and she was 14 years old, her father said.