AFGHANISTAN: 19 year-old woman’s choice – 12 years in jail or marry her rapist and risk being honor-killed by her own family

Even two years later, Gulnaz remembers the smell and state of her rapist’s clothes when he came into the house when her mother left for a brief visit to the hospital.

CNN (H/T to all who sent this) “He had filthy clothes on as he does metal and construction work. When my mother went out, he came into my house and he closed doors and windows. I started screaming, but he shut me up by putting his hands on my mouth,” she said. The rapist was her cousin’s husband.

After the attack, she hid what happened as long as she could. But soon she began showing signs of pregnancy. It was her attacker’s child. In Afghanistan, this brought her not sympathy, but prosecution. Aged just 19, she was found guilty by the courts of sex outside of marriage — adultery — and sentenced to twelve years in jail. Now inside Kabul’s Badam Bagh jail, she and her child are serving her sentence together.

The only way around the dishonor of rape, or adultery in the eyes of Afghans, is to marry her attacker. This will, in the eyes of some, give her child a family and restore her honor. Incredibly, this is something that Gulnaz is willing to do.  (Not so) Shockingly, Gulnaz’s case is common in Afghanistan.