Afghan woman killed for giving birth to a girl

Monday, 30 January 2012

Wali Hazrata has been arrested for allegedly helping her son kill her daughter-in-law for giving birth to a third daughter. (File photo)

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By Al Arabiya with Agencies

Afghan police were on Monday hunting a man who allegedly killed his wife after she gave birth to the couple’s third daughter, an official said.

Storay, 30, was beaten to death in the Khan Abad district of the northern province Kunduz last Wednesday after she delivered another baby girl, angering her husband who had wanted a son, police said.

“She was beaten to death by her husband after she gave birth to their third baby girl. We were informed of the case by Storay’s father,” Sayed Sarwar Husaini, the provincial police spokesman, told AFP.

There were signs of torture on her body, he added.

Police Chief Sufi Habibullah says they have the man’s mother in custody because she appears to have collaborated in a plot to kill her daughter-in-law.

Provincial women's affairs chief Nadira Ghya said the victim had warned family members that her husband had threatened to kill her if she gave birth to another daughter.

Violence and abuse against women continues to be a major problem in Afghanistan, a decade after U.S.-led troops brought down the Taliban regime.

Last month, police found a teen bride who had been locked in a toilet for six months at her husband’s house in neighboring Baghlan province.

She was burned and beaten, and had her fingernails pulled out.

British charity Oxfam says 87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.