Kabul- Sahar Gul (above) was tortured by her husbands family after refusing to become a prostitute to help support the family financially. After neighbors heard her cries of agony and pain, she was found in critical condition in a bathroom with little to nothing to eat and/or drink. Police of Baghlan investigated the 15 year old and found her fingernails had been pulled out as well as her hair.
"She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money," said Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan.
"After police rescued her from a dark room of her in-laws' house . . . she said with a broken voice that her husband used to cut her flesh with pliers," exclaimed Baghlan police official Jawid Basharat. Sahar was married to a 30-year-old, Gulam Sakhi, whom is a member of the Afghan army, but has since gone into hiding since the dawn of his excessive abuse and misuse of his teen wife.
With multiple bruises, including a bruised left eye that's been swollen shut for the past six days, added with scars covering most of her body, doctors might need to send her to India to receive proper medical attention. Following the beatings and torture, Sahar was thrown into a dirty basement where she was locked in and provided with the bare minimum of necessities for five months. When visited by a male relative, he found Sahar nearly too weak to speak. She was found in such unusual conditions after her family had already contacted Baghlan law officials because her husbands family didn't allow her to see family as required in Afghan law. Following a discussion on her treatment, the family agreed to stop hurting the young bride, but some allege the officials were bribed to cover up the incident.
Sediq Sediqi, spokesman of the Interior Ministry expressed remorse of Sahar's treatment stating it was a "violent act that is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Sahar's mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been arrested, though her husband and father-in-law are still at large. Aside from the charges dealing with Sahar, her mother-in-law along with other family members of Sahar's ex-husband were supposedly engaged in other "criminal activities," such as prostitution and selling alcohol, both of which are not only illegal, but condoned by Islam, Afghanistan's recognized religion.
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