Mullah rapes 10 year old girl, girl's family responds by trying to murder her

[Kuya]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/wo...088400000&_r=1

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque, and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defense that it had been consensual sex.

But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an “honor killing” in the case — against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead.

This past week, the awful matter became even worse. On Tuesday, local policemen removed the girl from the shelter that had given her refuge and returned her to her family, despite complaints from women’s activists that she was likely to be killed.

The case has broader repercussions. The head of the Women for Afghan Women shelter here where the girl took refuge, Dr. Hassina Sarwari, was at one point driven into hiding by death threats from the girl’s family and other mullahs, who sought to play down the crime by arguing the girl was much older than 10. One militia commander sent Dr. Sarwari threatening texts and an ultimatum to return the girl to her family. The doctor said she now wanted to flee Afghanistan.

The head of the women’s affairs office in Kunduz, Nederah Geyah, who actively campaigned to have the young girl protected from her family and the mullah prosecuted, resigned on May 21 and moved to another part of the country.

Most of the anger in Kunduz has been focused not on the mullah but on the women’s activists and the shelter, which is one of seven operated across Afghanistan by W omen for Afghan Women, an Afghan-run charity that is heavily dependent on American aid, from both government and private donors.

The accused mullah, Mohammad Amin, was arrested and confessed to having sex with the girl after Quran recitation classes at the mosque on May 1, but claimed that he thought the girl was older and that she responded to his advances.

The girl’s own testimony, and medical evidence, supported a rape so violent that it caused a fistula, or a break in the wall between the vagina and rectum, according to the police and the official bill of indictment. She bled so profusely after the attack that she was at one point in danger of losing her life because of a delay in getting medical care.

After the two women’s officials began speaking out about the case, they started receiving threatening calls from mullahs — some of them Taliban, others on the government side — and from arbakai, or pro-government militiamen. One of their claims was that the girl was actually 17, and thus of marriageable age, not 10.

Photographs of the girl that Dr. Sarwari took in the hospital clearly show a pre-pubescent child, and the doctor said the girl weighed only 40 pounds. Few Afghans have birth records, and many do not know their precise ages. But the girl’s mother said she was 10, and a forensic examination in the hospital agreed, saying she had not yet started menstruating or developing secondary sexual characteristics.

Ms. Geyah said: “I went to the hospital when they brought her there. I was sitting next to her bed when I overheard her mother and aunt saying that her father was under tremendous pressure by the villagers to kill the girl because she had brought shame to them.”

When Dr. Sarwari, who is a pediatrician, arrived to pick up the girl at the hospital, a crowd of village elders from Alti Gumbad, the girl’s home village on the outskirts of the city of Kunduz, were gathered outside the hospital; the girl’s brothers, father and uncle were among them. Inside, Dr. Sarwari encountered the girl’s aunt, who told her she had been ordered by her husband to sneak the girl out of the hospital and deliver her to the male relatives outside. “She said they wanted to take her and kill her, and dump her in the river,” Dr. Sarwari said.

Even mothers here often believe that there is no choice but to kill rape victims, who are seen as unmarriageable and therefore a lifelong burden to their families, as well as a constant reminder of dishonor. “Their men feel they have to wash their shame with blood,” Dr. Sarwari said.

The doctor took the girl away to the shelter. Afterward, Dr. Sarwari and several women’s affairs officials were threatened by the girl’s family, and by other mullahs. “They call me and curse me, and threaten to kill me and my family, and say they know where I live,” Dr. Sarwari said. “They say, once your American husbands leave Afghanistan, we will do what we want to you.” (Her husband is an Afghan doctor and war veteran.)

Women for Afghan Women arranged for the girl to get medical treatment, and after she healed, she was returned to the shelter in Kunduz, about two weeks ago, until the police returned her to her family last Tuesday. Those caring for the girl said she had been terribly homesick and wanted to return to her family, but no one had the heart to tell her they had been conspiring to kill her.

These 10 year old girls are always falsely accusing niggas all the time, man.

These people NEED feminism.

[myreality]

So when do we send in the drone strike?

[Gokku]

we carpet drop vibrators dildos anal plugs and cosmo mags and let the rest happen

[Xno Kappa]

Kunduz is the literal definition of a shithole.

[Kuya]

We should save all the females and boys below the arbitrary age of 12 and then nuke the place.

edit: can we nuke religion too?

[Waraji]

We should save all the females and boys below the arbitrary age of 12 and then nuke the place.

edit: can we nuke religion too?

Keeping the children would only prolong the inevitable re-uprising of... these kinds of people.

Nuke them all. Also, did anyone else kinda go along with the extremists recent destruction of "holy relics" in Iraq? I kind of didn't mind.

[BaneTheBrawler]

it's their own damn cultural history. if they want to destroy it, why stop them? it's not like it's a good culture anymore anyway, what with the raping and honor killing children. eventually they'll kill each other off and we can forget they ever existed.

[mallister]

afghanistan.

[Kuya]

Jokes aside though, the women providing help to these children are afghani women. I get that we sometimes joke that all these niggas are the same, but let's not lose perspective that someone like Malala comes from here. If we go by the same logic, we should have nuked the US when they were racist, homophobic and sexist back in the 1800s. If we had nukes back then, and if the US weren't the one who invented nukes first.

[thetruepandagod]

America changed/ are changing most of their racist/sexist/homophobic related issues from within. Why not let Afghanistan do the same.

[Andalusian girls]

que injusticia

[ronin sparthos]

Jokes aside though, the women providing help to these children are afghani women. I get that we sometimes joke that all these niggas are the same, but let's not lose perspective that someone like Malala comes from here. If we go by the same logic, we should have nuked the US when they were racist, homophobic and sexist back in the 1800s. If we had nukes back then, and if the US weren't the one who invented nukes first.

Malala Yousafzai happened to grow up under a father who is an education rights activist who sees the value in well-educated women. It's why he took her out to speak and to champion the causes that he holds dear to him at a very young age. In turn, Malalas father gained his deeper insight into such matters having grown up under a father who was a famous orator and poet.

tl;dr - If your parents are educated, odds are you'll be too. Education meaning being able to visualize more than what your dogmatic lifestyle dictates.

Their family is the exception, not the rule.

[BaneTheBrawler]

i was only half joking. i think of it like this: either A: there's mostly bad people, in which case fuck 'em, or B: there's mostly "good" people but they don't do shit to stop this kind of crap because they don't care.

i mean really, what's the line that needs to be crossed for these "good" people to stand up for themselves? it's clearly not "rape by authority figure and murder by family (because you know they're gonna) of 10 year old child." because that shit's been going on for a long time. if there were enough good people in the country to stand up for themselves, they would have done it ages ago.

[Weegion]

i was only half joking. i think of it like this: either A: there's mostly bad people, in which case fuck 'em, or B: there's mostly "good" people but they don't do shit to stop this kind of crap because they don't care.

i mean really, what's the line that needs to be crossed for these "good" people to stand up for themselves? it's clearly not "rape by authority figure and murder by family (because you know they're gonna) of 10 year old child." because that shit's been going on for a long time. if there were enough good people in the country to stand up for themselves, they would have done it ages ago.

Well, the penalty for challenging divine law is often death, so there's that.

[archibaldcrane]

I can see backwoods (backdesert?) Afghans not knowing their exact birthday, I guess...but I mean, how about just counting the winters since birth to get you within a few months at least?

[BaneTheBrawler]

Well, the penalty for challenging divine law is often death, so there's that.

i'm not talking about individuals acting alone. i'm talking about rebellion.

[Xno Kappa]

I can see backwoods (backdesert?) Afghans not knowing their exact birthday, I guess...but I mean, how about just counting the winters since birth to get you within a few months at least?

They literally do just this. "I am Dirka, son of Mohammed, born 30 years what ever season they were born in ago." Whenever we'd have to collect a local national's info we'd always have to put Jan 1st, 19XX.

[Kuya]

You have to understand that some of these people are literally from a time where the bible was written. As you can see, they literally talk like the bible.

All the more reason to base your moral compass of that book, no doubt.

[Andalusian girls]

rather have them base their moral compass around a pacifist socialist than a war-mongering crusader

[ronin sparthos]

Jesus was a pacifist?