Afghanistan to send tortured teenage girl to India for treatment

Jan 2, 2012, 13:05 GMT

Kabul - Afghan authorities said Monday they will send a teenager who was tortured and kept in a toilet for six months to India for medical treatment.

Sahar Gul, 15, was locked in a toilet and abused by her in-laws in the northern province of Baghlan, a statement by the presidential palace said late Sunday.

Her health condition was improving, but the government 'will take her to India for medical treatment,' Interior Ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi said on Monday.

'We have already arrested Sahar Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law,' Seddiqi said. 'We are taking this issue of violence against an innocent woman seriously.'

Her father-in-law and husband were still on the run. The minimum age for marriage in Afghanistan is 16 for women, and 18 for men.

Gul was discovered by Afghan police on December 26 after her uncle reported her alleged mistreatment.

Her husband's family had tortured her because she refused to prostitute herself, the police said. Her fingernails had been pulled out, and she had several burns, apparently from an iron and cigarettes, they said.

President Hamid Karzai announced an investigation into the case late Saturday.

Activists and international observers have repeatedly raised concerns over the state of women's rights in Afghanistan.

Almost a third of Afghan women are exposed to physical or psychological violence at some point and an estimated 25 per cent are victims of sexual violence, according to the United Nations.

Legislation to protect women was poorly implemented, and many incidents still go unreported, a UN report said in November.

Between March 2010 and March 2011, 2,299 incidents of violence against women were registered at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. But prosecutors opened only a quarter of those cases, and filed indictments in only 7 per cent, the report said.

In November, gunmen threw acid in the faces of three girls and their parents in Kunduz province, just north of Baghlan, after the family refused to marry their eldest daughter to a local warlord.