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AFGHANISTAN - CLERIC GETS 20-YEAR
SENTENCE FOR RAPE OF 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL - LANDMARK CASE HAILED BY WOMEN
By
Chandrika Narayan, CNN - October 27, 2014
(CNN) -- A 10-year-old girl, brutally raped, confronts her attacker in court.
The culprit -- a cleric -- tries to pass it off as "consensual sex."
A judge sentences him to 20 years and some $30,000 in fines.
What's extraordinary is that these scenes played out Saturday in a courtroom in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The case is being hailed by women's rights groups and activists as a watershed moment, in a country where women are still the targets of violence, despite reforms since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
"This case shows the level of cruelty that children in Afghanistan face," said Horia Mosadiq, an Afghanistan researcher with Amnesty International. "This is not an isolated case."
What's unusual about this case is that the victim had the courage to step forward, said Naheed Samadi Bahram, program director for Women for Afghan Women, or WAW, an international women's rights organization helping with the case.
A
little young girl from a far province gets justice for herself, this is
amazing. This is a success for human rights in the country.
Naheed Samadi Bahram, WAW
"It makes us believe and trust more in the justice system in the country," Bahram said, speaking to CNN by phone from Kabul. "A little young girl from a far province gets justice for herself, this is amazing. This is a success for human rights in the country".
A hateful crime
The rape occurred in May, in the girl's village in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, according to media reports.
The group sheltered the victim and helped her family navigate the legal process.
This is their account of what happened:
The perpetrator, Mullah Mohammad Amin, was a local mullah who taught the girls religious studies.
One day in May, the mullah asked three girls to stay behind after classes to help clean the mosque.
When they were about to leave, he asked the victim to stay. He then tied her hands, taped her mouth and raped her.
She went home and was later examined by a doctor, who confirmed the rape.
The police were informed and the mullah was arrested.
The girl stayed at the WAW women's shelter for a few days and was then sent to Kabul for treatment.
Amin was prosecuted under the Elimination of Violence against Women law, passed in 2009.
While the law has been on the books for the past few years, it had not been strongly implemented, Najia Nasim, country director for WAW, told CNN from Kabul.
"To seek justice for these cases is unusual. They are normally not reported; even if they are reported they are not followed up. The women don't want to bring shame to their family. Some are not aware of the law; others don't trust the government."
Patti Gossman, a senior researcher on Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch, agreed that it is uncommon for rape cases to get this far.
The
welcome step in this case is that the judge did not charge the child.
Patti Gossman, HRW
"It's quite unusual that she would bring this case," Gossman said. "Most women would be afraid."
There was also concern, when this case surfaced, about honor killings, she said.
Dramatic courtroom testimony
On Saturday, the victim showed up at the Kabul courtroom accompanied by her father and uncle, said Bahram, who attended the proceedings in Kabul.
The trial lasted nearly two hours, she said.
The mullah sat on the floor, shackled with chains attached to handcuffs, Bahram said, while his young victim kept her face covered with a scarf.
She wept most of the time, Bahram said.
The trial began with the mullah's two defense attorneys reading his statement given to police after his arrest, in which the cleric admitted to having sex with the girl. The lawyers tried to persuade the court that the sex was consensual and that he should be given only 100 lashes as punishment, Bahram said.
Judge Sulaiman Rasouli rejected that argument because it would mean lashing the girl too and treating her as an adulterer rather than a rape victim, according to news reports.
When Amin, speaking in his own defense, said the victim had seduced him, the girl reacted strongly.
"You are a liar... I never loved you... you forced me to do this, you ruined my life... God will hate you for what you did to me, he will punish you," Bahram said, paraphrasing the victim.
The girl's father also spoke up in the court, saying he trusted his daughter and that she never lied, Bahram said.
"The welcome step in this case is that the judge did not charge the child," said Gossman. "In a country where there are several women and girls imprisoned for moral crimes, that's a positive."
The court sentenced the mullah to the maximum 20-year sentence.
Amin's lawyers are expected to appeal to try to reduce the sentence.
Victim still traumatized
The victim is still very traumatized and emotionally fragile, said Nasim, who met the girl Sunday.
"She's a very shy girl; she does not talk much, but when you ask her about the case she starts to cry," Nasim said.
In an interview with Afghanistan's TOLO news agency, her father, who is deaf, said he hopes the sentencing would dissuade other perpetrators from committing such crimes in the future.
"Justice should be preserved so others will send their children to mosques," he told TOLO.
"When family and victims raise their voice it is unusual, but luckily more and more families are speaking out," said Amnesty International's Mosadiq, who credits the hard work of women's rights groups for the legal victory.
"To some extent this is a victory, but we still have a long way to go."
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Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:20 PM
Subject: Afghanistan - Girl Age 10 Raped by Mullah - Severely
Injured - Now Life at Risk
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Women for Afghan Women - http://www.womenforafghanwomen.org/
AFGHANISTAN - GIRL AGE 10 RAPED BY
MULLAH - SEVERELY INJURED - NOW LIFE AT RISK
Dr. Hassina
Sarwari, the head of Women for Afghan Women, showed photos of a girl who
reported being raped by a mullah. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times
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. 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.
The case itself would just
be an aberrant atrocity, except that the resulting support for the mullah, and
for the girl’s family and its honor killing plans, have become emblematic of a
broader failure to help Afghan women who have been victims of violence.
The result challenges hopes
that Western aid and encouragement can make lasting headway on behalf of Afghan
women, particularly in remote parts of the country where traditional customs
are still stronger than modern law. Here, Taliban insurgents and pro-government
elements often make common cause in their hatred of progress in women’s rights,
most of which has come about with international funding and pressure.
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.
“People know this office as
the Americans’ office,” Dr. Sarwari said. “They all think the shelter is an
American shelter. There isn’t a single American here,” she said.
“W.A.W. is not
American-run,” said Manizha Naderi, its executive director. “Every single staff
member is an Afghan. They are from the communities we work in. Our only concern
is to make sure women and girls are protected and that they get justice.”
As the Western withdrawal
from Afghanistan has accelerated, rights advocates are seeing a sharp
difference in their funding. “We already see the signs of losing the support of
the international community,” said Ms. Geyah, in an interview before she
resigned. “No one’s funding new civil society programs anymore. None of the
foreigners show up anymore; they’re all in hiding. And I think what gains we
have achieved the last 13 years, we’re slowly losing all of them.”
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 she showed
photos of the girl to government officials and prosecutors to prove that she
was much too young to have consented. Dr. Sarwari said, “We wanted to give her
a face, to make her real to them.”
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.”
Such honor killings in rape
cases are common in Afghanistan, and are often more important to the victim’s
family than vengeance against the attacker. Human rights groups say about 150
honor killings a year come to light, and many more probably go unreported.
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.
Efforts to reach the girl’s
relatives by telephone were unsuccessful, and insurgent activity around Alti
Gumbad made the village too dangerous for journalists to visit. “The girl’s
family gave us a guarantee that they would not harm her,” said Sayed Sarwar
Hussaini, head of the Kunduz police criminal investigation division. “We would
not hand her back unless we were sure.”
In
the hospital room, the doctor found the girl’s mother holding her child’s hand,
and both were weeping. “My daughter, may dust and soil protect you now,” Dr.
Sarwari quoted the mother as saying. “We will make you a bed of dust and soil.
We will send you to the cemetery where you will be safe.”
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.)
Dr. Sarwari has accused
prosecutors and religious officials of siding with the accused rapist and
ignoring the child’s plight.
“There are a lot of
powerful people behind the mullah,” Dr. Sarwari said. The girl’s family knows
they cannot do anything to Mr. Amin, she said, but “the girl is easy. They can
get to her; she’s their daughter.” She said she feared the girl would either be
killed, or forced to recant her accusations against the mullah.
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.