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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Afghan girl, given as bride at 9, fights for divorce |
| 2004-11-17 |
| Dusk crosses into night, and still Pekay isn't free. After a long day of walking from office to office, pleading with stubborn judges, her quest has failed: She's still married to her abusive husband. Once again, her memories take control. Her father's selling her in marriage to a man five times her age to pay the rent; the beatings and sodomy that followed. She was 9 years old. Her mind drifts toward suicide. She's tried twice - first with a knife, then with kerosene and a match. Pekay is 13 now, one of thousands of girls and women who are trapped in forced marriages, caught between the rural, tribal and Islamic customs that ruled the country for centuries and the promise of a new Afghanistan ruled by laws that apply equally to everyone. Domestic violence is widespread, but most cases never go to court. The laws are weak, and women stay silent out of fear or shame: Divorce disgraces the family and the tribe. Each year, scores of Afghan women escape bad marriages by setting themselves on fire or other forms of suicide. The Muslim fundamentalist Taliban regime collapsed three years ago. Hamid Karzai has won the country's first presidential elections. Women, who couldn't leave their homes freely in the old Afghanistan, voted in droves. Yet none of this momentous change has helped Pekay. Under Afghanistan's civil law, it's illegal for girls younger than 16 to marry. But the Supreme Court, led by conservative clerics and Islamic law, ruled that she can't get divorced, even from a violent child molester. Her last hope is that Fazal Hadi Shinwari, the ultra-conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court, will reverse the decision... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #9 The nym, leaddo2, is a contradiction. There is no alpha #2. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-17 11:06:49 PM |
| #8 Leaddog2, are you the person who used to call himself "Dog Bites Man" and "Dog Bites Trolls" and so forth? . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-11-17 11:00:43 PM |
| #7 Wahhabi Muslims will NEVER treat women decently. They are Demonically controlled and TOTALLY EVIL. |
| Posted by: leaddog2 2004-11-17 10:26:56 PM |
| #6 We'll know we're winning when women are no longer treated as chattel by Moslems. |
| Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-11-17 9:13:42 PM |
| #5 poor girl , childhood stolen from her . These storys truely bring a tear to my eye . I am utterly gutted |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-17 8:22:47 PM |
| #4 Reading stuff like this just makes me happy that i live in a society where i get to make my own choices regarding my life. I don't feel sorry for that girl at all, nor the millions of other Muslims around the world. Sympathy towards Muslims & Islam is something that i am not compatible with & never will be. Its not our fault they live in such a shit infested hell hole, ruled by retarded Sharia Laws that revolve around a pathetic religion known as Islam. We've tried to help the Muslims countless numbers of times in the past and they just keep spitting in our faces. Let their deaths be their freedom. |
| Posted by: God Save The World 2004-11-17 8:19:09 PM |
| #3 Supreme Court Justice Sayeed Omar Munib explains: When asked if he believed that women and men have equal rights, as Afghanistan's constitution states, Munib replied: "It's impossible. We are Muslims, and God has given a place for men and a place for women. We can't change that. Women don't have the same brains like men. They are very forgetful. They can't make big decisions. You should ask your own Western doctors about this. It has been proven that women are not like men." Ok.. how about we ask the Dr. Condi Rice PhD (and future Secretary of State of the only superpower in the world)? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-11-17 7:54:23 PM |
| #2 As posted at the end of the article Fazal Hadi Shinwari granted her divorce: Chief justice intervenes Friends of the family got Pekay an appointment with Chief Justice Shinwari. They were educated women and now had a voice, if a faint one, in the new Afghanistan. It took them weeks, but they finally got a meeting for Pekay. Shinwari, also a cleric, dispensed justice according to strict sharia. But he looked at Pekay's face and body, and listened to Pekay's witnesses. After considering the evidence, he approved Pekay's divorce. Muhammad, however, is determined to get Pekay back. "I'll die before divorcing her," he said. "I can't force her to come back to my house, but I can make sure she won't marry again. One day she'll come back. She has to." |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-11-17 7:42:42 PM |
| #1 She'll need either an army of bodyguards or a passport and ticket out to stay alive. I fully expect an honor killing is in the works right now. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-17 6:48:42 PM |