[Prosecutors, family members and human rights advocates vehemently disagree with the suspects’ description of what happened to Lal Bibi, the young woman. They say there is little doubt that she was abducted and raped and that there was no marriage. They also challenge the idea that any marriage in such circumstances could be legitimate or exonerate the rape. Forced marriage is illegal under Afghan law, said Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi, the military prosecutor in Kunduz.]
By Alissa J. Rubin
“Once the marriage contract is done, any sexual intercourse
is not considered rape,” said Khodaidad, 42, who until he was detained in the
case had worked for the American-trained Afghan Local Police.
His brother Ghulam Sakhi, accused by the young woman of participating in her abduction, sat
beside Khodaidad on the floor of a small traditional reception room at the
provincial jail here. He chimed in: “In Pashtun culture, the girls do not have
the right to say who they marry and who they don’t want to marry. Whomever
their parents choose for them, they should marry.”
Neither man has been formally charged, and both deny the
abduction and rape allegations.
Prosecutors, family members and human rights advocates
vehemently disagree with the suspects’ description of what happened to Lal
Bibi, the young woman. They say there is little doubt that she was abducted and
raped and that there was no marriage. They also challenge the idea that any
marriage in such circumstances could be legitimate or exonerate the rape.
Forced marriage is illegal under Afghan law, said Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi,
the military prosecutor in Kunduz.
However, for many people here, including the Kunduz police
chief and the spokesman for the Interior Ministry — both of whom insisted that
the case involved forced marriage, not rape — the former appeared to be less
objectionable, although others would regard the line between the two as thin.
Interviews with more than a dozen people connected to the
case suggest that much more is at stake than the fate of an 18-year-old
shepherd’s daughter. Her plight illuminates the persistence of tribal custom,
the fragility of newly legislated protections for women, and the power of armed
men.
What constitutes rape is only one of the contentious issues
in this case, which first came to light about a month ago, when Lal Bibi and
her family took the rare step of going public with their accusations. The case
galvanized President Hamid Karzai, who ordered that the culprits be brought to
justice and that the police unit involved be disarmed.
However, some members of Afghanistan
While sharing the goal of security, prosecutors and human
rights advocates want to show that this is a new Afghanistan
“The problem is that these people are illiterate and
uneducated,” said General Safi, the military prosecutor, speaking of the
police, particularly the unit involved in the case. “They haven’t been told their
job description, they don’t have a code of conduct, most are former militia
members who still have the mentality they had 15 years ago — they still think
they can kill with impunity, rape with impunity.”
“I am very supportive of the Afghan Local Police program,”
he added, “It’s a very good program, but I am very critical of the recruitment
and selection process.”
Still, General Safi said, despite the program’s flaws, as a
prosecutor he would much prefer to deal with the local police, which falls
under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry, giving him greater authority
to act than is the case with other armed groups.
Amid all the shouting, Lal Bibi and her family are very
unsure whether justice will be done or whether they will be forever humiliated
in their community for having a daughter who, by Pashtun tribal traditions, has
been tarnished. Families in similar circumstances sometimes kill the victims
because of the perceived dishonor.
Last week, the family, which had never visited the
sprawling Afghan capital, made the 10-hour journey by taxi from the city of Kunduz Kabul
“We had never been here before, and you know, it is very
difficult to get officials to meet with you,” said Lal Bibi’s grandfather,
Hajji Rustam, looking down at his shoes, which he had polished for his visits
to the ministries.
Lal Bibi and her mother had come as well, because as women
they could not stay home alone in Kunduz. But they were in another room and
were not in a condition to see visitors, Lal Bibi’s father said.
Two more suspects were detained last weekend, including the
man who is alleged to be the ringleader in the crime, Cmdr. Muhammad Ishaq
Nezaami, who commanded the local police unit and is accused of ordering Lal
Bibi’s abduction. Previously, the Kunduz police chief and others said that
Commander Nezaami and the other man had left the area, but the two were
apprehended in the outpost where they previously worked.
Mr. Karzai’s order to disarm the police unit involved in
the episode seems to have been largely overtaken by events, now that four of
the five unit members have been detained.
In the meantime, Gen. Samiullah Qatra, the Kunduz
provincial police chief, and Col. Mohammed Shokur, the head of the local police
program in Kunduz, have brought in a new unit. It is led by the brother of
Commander Nezaami, a move that has angered local people who view it as a
deliberate taunt.
“Nezaami’s brother was driving Nezaami’s truck, so people
think he is back and that scares them,” said Hajji Balkhi, an elder from Lal
Bibi’s village. “It is an insult, not just to Hajji Rustam, but to all of us.”
General Qatra, like his boss, Interior Minister Bismullah
Khan, was enthusiastic when the Americans proposed forming the Afghan Local
Police, groups of lightly armed local men trained by Special Operations forces
to help fight the Taliban. Some informal armed groups with links to the Northern
Alliance, as well as some Taliban who renounced the insurgency, were folded
into these new local units, Colonel Shokur said.
For his part, General Qatra would rather view Lal Bibi’s
case as a family affair than as a serious crime.
“There hasn’t been any rape involved; it was a forced
marriage,” he said briskly. “And in this case, the family has claimed their
daughter was given as ‘baad.’ ” Baad is the practice of trading women as a payment to resolve disputes
between families, clans or tribes. Typically, when a girl is given in baad, it
is the result of a meeting of elders in which both families have
representatives.
General Qatra did not deny that Commander Nezaami’s brother
now led the unit, but said it was irrelevant. “A crime is a personal thing,
whoever does a crime should be punished,” he said. “You cannot punish my
brother for the crime I have committed.”
He brushed off the idea that he might be trying to
intimidate the family, saying that he had no choice but to replace the unit
with another one. “We need that outpost to prevent that village from falling
into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.
That is small comfort to Lal Bibi and her family, since
they feel they cannot return to their tents and sheep. They say they are under
threat because they spoke out against the armed men who are supposed to keep
them safe.
General Safi, the prosecutor, said that he had dealt with a
lot of cases, but that this one “reaffirmed my stance against the mistreatment
of women.”
Referring to the many women’s projects financed by the
international community, he added, “I realized — all this money they spent to
improve the situation of women, and there are still a lot of women who are
mistreated every day and whose life condition has not changed much.”
