Related
Stories
 |
| The 15-year-old says her hair and her nails were pulled out by her mother-in-law |
A video
given to the BBC shows the extent of the injuries suffered by a 15 year-old
Afghan child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband.
The girl
was left starving after being detained by him and his family for several
months.
The case
came to light this week when police rescued the teenager, Sahar Gul, who had
been locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house.
Police say
that she had had her nails and clumps of hair pulled out.
In addition
they say she had chunks of flesh cut out with pliers.
Windowless
room
Sahar Gul
was married off to a 30-year-old man around seven months ago, when she was just
14 years old. Her parents contacted police after not being able to see her for
several months.
She was
rescued from a dark, windowless room in her in-laws' house, according to
Baghlan police official Jawid Basharat.
In the
video, as Sahar is taken to hospital in a wheelchair, she is asked who beat
her. She names her father-in-law, her husband, her sister-in-law, her
brother-in-law and her mother-in-law. The 15-year-old says her hair and her
nails were pulled out by her mother-in-law.
The
authorities in the northern Baghlan province said they were aware of reports
that the girl was tortured after she refused to be forced into prostitution,
but could not confirm that was the case.
Rahima
Zarifi, director of the Women's Affairs Department in Baghlan, said Sahar had
been severely tortured, both physically and mentally, and that the
psychological scars were likely to endure.
The police
have managed to arrest Sahar's in-laws, but her husband had already fled.
Women in
many parts of Afghanistan continue to suffer domestic abuse, often at the hands
of their own family or in-laws.
Human
rights activists worry that the plight of many women here, especially in rural
areas, is being sidelined as the international community focuses on its
military drawdown, and puts less emphasis and less pressure on the Afghan
authorities over human rights.
In the
second quarter of this year alone, the Afghan Independent Human Rights
Commission registered 1,026 cases of violence against women, compared with a
total last year of 2,700.
Those are
only the cases that come to light.
Under
Afghan law, the earliest age for marriage for girls is 16. However, almost half
of Afghan women are married when they are younger.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.