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Rape Victim Jailed for Adultery, Forced to Marry Her Rapist & Give Birth

Posted by on Nov 23, 2011 in Oh Hell No! | 2 comments

Guilty of what?!

Afghan prosecutors announced Wednesday that a young rape victim, jailed for adultery after reporting the crime and pushed into marrying her attacker, would have her sentence reduced from twelve to three years. The prosecutor said she would, for now, remain in jail — with her child — for not reporting her attack fast enough.

In a remarkable case that is all too common in Afghanistan but has drawn international attention, 21-year-old Gulnaz was attacked by a relative two years ago, but sentenced to 12 years in jail for adultery.

She has since given birth to a girl from the attack. Because of the dishonor of sex outside of wedlock, she had been given the choice of marrying her attacker to get out of jail and legitimize her infant daughter in the eyes of Afghanistan’s conservative society.

The child is imprisoned with her at Badambagh Prison on the outskirts of Kabul.

Facing mounting pressure from the international legal community and the United Nations, authorities have rebranded the crime from the horrific “guilty of being raped” into the just as unpalatable “guilty of not reporting the rape sooner, even though we jailed you for reporting it at all.”

The full account of this poor woman’s horror story should be read over at CNN.