1/3/12, "Locals say the family simply promised to stop hurting her. Ziaulhaq also alleged that bribes were paid to government officials to hush up the affair." US tax dollars at work.
1/3/12, "Tortured Afghan child bride had been sent back to in-laws," Sydney Morning Herald, Jon Boone
"A 15-year-old Afghan girl who was nearly tortured to death by her husband and his family attempted to escape from her attackers more than four months ago but was sent back home by local authorities, it has emerged.
Sahar Gul, a child bride married off to a soldier called Gulam Sakhi who then tried to force her into prostitution, is being treated for horrific injuries in a hospital in Kabul after she was rescued last week.
During her ordeal several of her fingernails were ripped out with pliers and one of her ears was badly burned by an iron. Her husband is now on the run, and her mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been arrested....
But disturbing new details about how the local community and authorities responded to her abuse has highlighted the ambivalence many Afghans have over how far women should be able
- to exercise the most basic of legal rights.
"She ran away to her neighbour's house and told them that her husband was trying to make her become a prostitute," said local community leader Ziaulhaq. " 'If you are a Muslim, you must tell the government what is happening to me,' she told them."
The locals said they did take the case to the authorities. When the police arrived Sahar's mother-in-law tried to fight them off, screaming all the while that her son had "bought" the girl who therefore had to do what she was told.
She appeared to be alluding to the dowry paid by Sakhi's family, a sum thought to be about $4000.
Locals say the family simply promised to stop hurting her. Ziaulhaq also alleged that bribes were paid to government officials to hush up the affair.
Although she emphatically denied money was paid, Rahima Zarifi, the women's affairs chief in Baghlan province, said she could not remember the details of the case, or why Sahar was sent back home.
The abuse resumed and continued for months until a male relative visited. When he found the girl, who had been starved in a locked basement for weeks, Sahar was almost unable to speak.
Fauzia Kufi, an MP who campaigns on women's issues, said that even then local authorities attempted to resolve the abuse through "traditional means".
"Basically they wanted the relative to sit down with his sister's abusers and work out an agreement," she said.
Kufi also claims there was strong pressure not to publicise the case.
"Many people don't take these sorts of crimes seriously and don't think it should be reported," she said.
"Even the local authorities have blamed the department for women's affairs for not trying to solve it locally between families in the traditional way."
Horrific abuse of women is still common in Afghanistan, particularly against brides who can be regarded as chattels by their husbands or are exchanged between families in order to resolve feuds.
The government is frequently unwilling to enforce laws it has often been forced to pass by the country's international backers, and the writ of the state often does not run in areas far away from urban centres.
However, the case of Sahar was not in the remote countryside but in Puli Khumri, an important, mid-sized town which has one of the country's few factories.
Kufi also claimed that local sources told her that Sakhi, despite having a warrant out for his arrest, returned briefly to his home on Sunday night and that
- locals did not inform the police.
The claim is strongly denied by community leaders who say they were appalled by the crimes of the family and had never attempted a low-key, traditional mediation between the parties.
Abdullah Fahim, a senior adviser to the minister of public health, said the case was part of the "bitter reality" of Afghanistan....
The law on the elimination of violence against women was passed more than two years ago and criminalised many abuses for the first time, including domestic violence and child marriage.But a recent UN report found only a small percentage of reported crimes against women were pursued by the Afghan government.
Between March 2010 and March 2011, prosecutors opened 594 investigations involving crimes under the law - just 26 per cent of the incidents registered by the Afghan human rights commission." photo ap
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1/1/12, "Afghan girl tortured after refusing prostitution," Reuters
"A 15-year-old Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband's family for months after she refused to become a prostitute, officials said on Saturday.
Sahar Gul was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbours reported hearing Gul crying and moaning in pain.
According to police in Baghlan, her in-laws pulled out her nails and hair, and locked her in a dark basement bathroom for about five months, with barely enough food and water to survive.
"She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money," Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan told Reuters.
Gul is covered in scars and bruises, with one eye still swollen shut six days after her rescue. She is being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but her recovery could take weeks and she may have to be sent to India, doctors said....
Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban 10 years ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.However it can be hard for women to escape violent situations at home, because of huge social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.
Running away from an abusive husband or a forced marriage are considered "moral crimes", for which women are currently imprisoned in Afghanistan.
Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another "moral crime"."
---------------------12/31/11, "Afghan child bride tells of 'torture' by in-laws," Reuters
"Her brother had sold her to her husband about seven months ago for $5,000....
The minister said it was an example of "increased cases of violence against women in Afghanistan".
Women continue to suffer in Afghanistan despite billions of dollars of international aid which has poured into the country during the decade-long war.
Dalil said Gul was suffering from severe blood loss, with multiple burns and injuries....
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with
- 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.
And according to figures in an Oxfam report in October, 87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage."
15 year old Afghan girl rescued from toilet where she was imprisoned. afp
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"Subcontractors are impossible to trace."...
7/25/11, "U.S. trucking funds end up in Taliban hands," Reuters
"Cash from part of a $2.16 billion U.S. transportation contract in Afghanistan has ended up in the hands of Taliban insurgents, the Pentagon said on Monday."...
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10/13/10, "Afghan firms "pay off Taliban with foreign [American] cash," Reuters
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9/25/11, "Government by crime syndicate," LA Times, Op-ed, Sarah Chayes,"In Afghanistan and elsewhere, rampant corruption threatens security and the rule of law."
"Afghanistan is controlled by a structured, mafiaesque system, in which money flows upward via purchase of office, kickbacks or "sweets" in return for permission to extract resources (of which more varieties exist in impoverished Afghanistan than one might think)."...
via Atlas Shrugs
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