Brides tortured, girls killed for no fault of theirs. This should arouse our coscience |
A sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl became pregnant after being raped by her younger brother. Her family encouraged her older brother to kill her to remove the blemish from their honor. The rapist and the murderer were exonerated and the girl blamed and she was killed as she made a ‘crime’ A four-year-old Palestinian girl, raped by a man in his mid-twenties, was left by her family to bleed to death. They did this because they brought dishonor to the family. In Iraq, a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for her involvement with a British soldier serving there.. In Basra alone, it is reported, 15 women are murdered a month for breaching dress codes. In May of 2006 in the Punjab Province of Pakistan, Ayesha, an 18 year old girl, accused of adultery by her husband left her husband’s home to stay with her brother for fear of her life. Her husband, accompanied by his brother and under the guise of reconciliation met with her and persuaded her to return to his house. She agreed. Ayesha recounted from her hospital bed how, when they were traveling back, her husband and his brother stopped the car in a semi-remote area and started to beat and torture her. They cut off her nose and her lips. They then left her in a field unconcerned whether she would live or die! Again in May of 2006, another Pakistani woman, Shamin Mai, who committed the “crime” of marrying a man of her own choosing rather than acquiescing to a pre-arranged marriage by her family, had her legs chopped off by her brother and uncle. In Iran, two girls, identified only as Zohreh and Azar – sisters, were sentenced to death by stoning, having been convicted of adultery. The “crime” for which these two women were convicted and sentenced to death was caught on video tape. This “adultery” consisted of the two women being in the presence of other men when their husbands were absent. There was no sexual activity, no touching. It’s hard to tell from the tape if they were even conversing. But under Sharia Law they committed “adultery” and have been sentenced to death by stoning. They also received 99 lashes for “illegal relations.” They would be buried up to their neck and their heads covered with a black cloth. The “executers” would stand at a short distance and they would start throwing boulder sized stones at the hapless girls until they died. |