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Afghan Girls Afraid to Attend School Because of Kidnappings and Rapes
From Radio Free Europe / Radio LibertyRahima is a 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped on her way home from school in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. After 18 days of detention, during which she was raped, Rahima was recently released by law-enforcement agencies. In an interview with RFE/RL, Rahima said, "At around 1230 I was leaving school, going to my home. And the man came behind me, gagged me, and put me inside a car with red cardboard [on the windows]. They were brutal and they destroyed my life." Rahima was the second girl from the same school to be kidnapped this year, while three girls were reportedly found dead in Kunduz. In Rahima's case, Kunduz's security police commander Abdulmutaleb Baig says three people involved were arrested and the file turned over to a prosecutor. "A man kidnapped the girl in Kunduz and left her in Pulaykhumri [city] at the place of a relative. We arrested him. He confessed that he kidnapped the girl and drove her to Pulaykhumri with the help of the security officials. We investigated in accordance with the law, and arrested two other people. There are now in jail," Baig said. In an effort to crackdown on child kidnapping, President Hamid Karzai issued a decree in June imposing the death sentence on those found guilty of killing a kidnap victim. He also increased the jail term for those guilty of injuring an abducted child. At the same time, the decree called upon the attorney-general in Kabul and related offices to investigate child-kidnapping cases speedily and forward them to the appropriate court. Afghanistan saw its first prosecution for child kidnapping in June, when three men were tried in a Kabul court. The court sentenced two of the defendants to five years in jail and the third man to four years. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-11-28 |
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