WUNRN
Link to Full BBC Article:
15 March 2012 - Moroccan activists have stepped up pressure to scrap laws that allow rapists to marry their victims - after a 16-year-old girl killed herself. Amina Filali swallowed rat poison after being severely beaten during a forced marriage to her rapist. An online petition has been started - and protests are planned against a law branded by campaigners as an "embarrassment".The penal code allows the "kidnapper" of a minor to marry her to escape jail........
_____________________________________________________________
MOROCCO
- SUICIDE OF GIRL REPORTEDLY WED TO RAPIST SPURS OUTRAGE
March 14, 2012 - The suicide of a Moroccan teenager who
reportedly had been forced to marry her rapist has spurred calls
from around the world to change criminal laws long lamented by Moroccan
feminists.
Human rights groups complain that Moroccan law has been
interpreted to allow someone who rapes a minor to escape punishment if he
marries the victim. Moroccan media reported that was what happened to Amina
Filali, a 16-year-old who reportedly swallowed rat poison Saturday.
"It is unfortunately a recurring phenomenon,"
Fouzia Assouli, the president of the Democratic League for Women's Rights,
told the Associated Press. "We have been asking for years for the
cancellation of Article 475 of the penal code, which allows the rapist to
escape justice.”
The Moroccan government has argued that the law applies
only if the victim agrees to marry, but activists say young women can be
pressured into marriage to protect family honor. Her father told a Moroccan
news website that the courts had pushed the idea, the Associated Press
reported.
Activists took to Twitter to spread news of the reported
suicide using the hashtag #RIPAmina. "The tragedy of Amina is a disgrace
to humanity," Emirati political commentator Mishaal Al Gergawi wrote.
The 16-year-old was not legally old
enough to marry:
Moroccan women are seen as better protected than other
women in
The new Moroccan Constitution sets up the principle of
equality between men and women in all spheres. Compared with other countries in
the Arab region,
Yet Moroccan women still face laws that are lenient
toward husbands who harm their wives, unequal inheritances and other
inequities, according to reports from human rights groups. Nearly
two-thirds of Moroccan women are subjected to violence in their lifetimes,
according to a survey last year.