Afghan teen murder spotlights growing violence against women
(Reuters) – Pressing her cheek against the fresh grave of her newly married teenage daughter, Sabera yowls as she gently smears clumps of dirt over her tear-stained face.
“My daughter! Why did they kill you so brutally?” the mother screams in the sparsely filled cemetery in Parwan province, 65 km (40 miles) north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Sabera says her daughter Tamana was killed by a relative in a so-called “honour killing”, in what officials link to a wider trend of rapidly growing violence against women in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s independent human rights commission has recorded 52 murders of girls and women in the last four months, 42 of which were honour killings, compared to 20 murders for all of last year. Activists and some lawmakers accuse President Hamid Karzai’s government of selling out to the ultra-conservative Taliban, with whom it seeks peace talks, as most foreign troops prepare to leave the country by the end of 2014. During their 1996-2001 reign, the Taliban banned women from education, voting and most work, and they were not allowed to leave their homes without permission and a male escort, rights which have been painstakingly won back.