11th July 2009. See article from telegraph.co.uk

The law governing family relations for Afghanistan's Shia minority triggered protests and widespread indignation when it was passed in March.

Articles in the original version required a wife to submit to her husband's advances every four days and stated that she could not leave the house without his permission.

Barack Obama called the clauses abhorrent and President Hamid Karzai promised to reform the law in the face of intense international pressure.

The amended Shia personal status law was passed by the Afghan cabinet in secrecy earlier this month. But despite some contentious clauses being removed, it still states that a man need not support his wife financially unless he has access to her. Women in traditional rural Afghan society rely on their husbands for support.

The new law also still gives rights of guardianship entirely to fathers and grandfathers. By stipulating blood money should be paid for underage girls who are raped, human rights groups allege it also implicity sanctions child abuse.

28th June 2009. See article from rawa.org, Thanks to Alan

A father brutally murdered his daughter and a young boy for having love affairs in Northern Afghanistan. He stabbed them many times with a knife.

The girl was named Shakila and was 18 years old and the boy named Ghulam Sakhi was 22.

Officer Amir Jan Istanikzai, police chief of Samangan, told PAN that the murder had been committed by Haji Gulbuddin, the girl's father. He added that Haji Gulbuddin had called the police and the police went to his home and arrested him.

Dr. Abdul Momin Frotan, in-charge in the Provincial Hospital of Samangan, said that the bodies of the boy and girl were brought to the hospital and that they both have been stabbed 50 to 60 times in their head, face and body. Frotan claimed that according to the medical examinations, the girl has been raped.

  Machine Gun

5th May 2009. See article from news.com.au, Thanks to Alan

An Afghan man shot dead his adult daughter and her boyfriend, who were both engaged to other people, after finding them in bed together, police said overnight.

The first cousins were found together on Wednesday after the 21-year-old man entered the 20-year-old woman's bedroom in the northern province of Baghlan, a police spokesman said: The two were under the blanket, but still in their clothes, when the girl's angry father walked in with an AK-47 machine gun and shot them both dead. He fired about six bullets into the man and four into his daughter.

A medical examination showed the pair had not had sex.

30th August 2009.  See article from news.com.au thanks to Alan

Former Anglican priest has admitted to a court that he allowed a 12-year-old boy to masturbate in his shower but has denied he acted in any way "improper".

Wilfred Dennis has pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecent assault and one count each of gross indecency and carnal knowledge relating to two altar boys in the 1970s.

He also denied telling Traditional Anglican Archbishop, John Hepworth, he had molested more then 40 boys during a telephone call in June 2002.

6th July 2009. See article from timesonline.co.uk

Children in Australia's aboriginal communities are six times more likely to be abused or neglected than the country's non-indigenous children, an Australian government report has found.

The report, which was expected to reveal improvements in the lives of Australia's most disadvantaged minority, highlights instead the devastating abuse suffered by Aboriginal women and children and the widening discrepancies between their lives and those of other Australians.

The 'Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage' report, released every two years, has found that substantiated child abuse cases in the indigenous community more than doubled from 16 per 1000 children in 1999 - 2000 to 35 per 1000 children in 2007 - 2008. In the same period, abuse cases among non-indigenous children increased from five per 1000 to six per 1000.

The report also found that Aboriginal women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised due to domestic violence than non-indigenous women, although Aborigines make up only 2 per cent of the country's 22 million population.

15th September 2009.  See article from thedailystar.net, thanks to Alan

A septuagenarian moneylender has married a 13-year old girl in Muladi upazila after her poor father failed to repay him the borrowed money.

The marriage between Akhinur and 75-year old Lokman Sikder was solemnised on September 4, as Azhar Bepari, father of the girl, could not pay Tk 4,000 he had borrowed from Lokman after cyclone Aila hit their Banimordhon village in May this year.

September 4 was a dreadful day for Akhinur. She became dumbfounded when her mother asked her to get ready for marriage with the person whom she used to know as 'Lokman Nana' (grandfather).

After sunset, four male persons came to their house. Of them, it was only 'Lokman Nana' she could recognise as he used to visit their house to recover loan. The three others included the imam of a nearby mosque.

They took her signature on the blue-coloured marriage register book--'Nikah Register'--and then her mother pronounced Lokman and Akhinur as husband and wife.

11th August 2009. See article from thedailystar.net, thanks to Alan

Babli's father wanted to be the "proud parent" of a son, and when a son was not born to him but a daughter, he chose to be a villain.

Bakhtiar Rana, a carpenter by profession in Betagi Thana in Rangunia, Chittagong, took an instant dislike to the fact that his wife had given him a burden instead of an heir and made his feelings clear.

The resentment over being stuck with a burden -- as a girl child is still labelled in society -- grew in such proportions in him that things took a turn for the worst when Babli was just seven months old in July 2000.

On the fateful day, Babli's father chose to forget that he was a human being. He took his child in his arms and used a medicine dropper to force acid into her mouth, into her ears and on her feet. He also did not spare her anal passage.

The attack left Babli with a burnt throat, tongue and severe hearing impairment. She also suffered serious damage to knees, feet and anal passage. But the fighter that the little baby was, she kept her struggle to just stay alive and she was lucky enough to draw the attention of people who would help her.

Now eight years later, after sessions of continuous treatments, Babli can now not only eat on her own but also talk and even goes to school.

Bakhtiar Rana was never arrested and her mother Parul Akter still suffers from the trauma of witnessing the heinous attack on her child to kill her.

21st December 2009.  See article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

The stepfather of a two-year-old boy found with 42 needles in his body has confessed to jabbing them into the toddler as part of a religious ritual.

Roberto Carlos Magalhaes told detectives that a woman who went into a trance would command him to stick the needles in the boy's body, police inspector Helder Fernandes Santana said.

According to his confession, he acted under influence of the woman, but it was he who stuck the needles in the boy's body.

The officer said three people, including the stepfather and the woman, had been arrested.

An enraged crowd of more than 100 people surrounded the police station where the suspects were held on Wednesday night, throwing stones at the building.

The child, meanwhile, was flown to a hospital in north-east Brazil, because two of the needles were close to his heart.

16th November 2009. See article from ottawasun.com, thanks to Alam

Ottawa's taxi union boss was handed a year in jail Tuesday for what a judge deemed an honour crime.

Yusef Salam Al Mezel had pleaded guilty to criminally harassing his 23-year-old daughter, Eman, over three weeks in July 2007.

Mr. Al Mezel has threatened his daughter with serious violence and has caused her to fear for her safety in the name of honour, Judge Lynn Ratushny wrote: He has committed the crime of harassment against her in the name of honour.

Al Mezel admitted to pushing his daughter, threatening to break her legs and kill her and smashing her computer. When she fled marriage to a Syrian man for a $9,000 dowry, he stalked her to a shelter and a friend's home.

He sent her e-mails threatening her uncles and cousins would go crazy over the family's honour and to come home before someone got hurt.

Police spirited the young woman — and the family sheltering her — out of Ottawa.

There's no evidence Al Mezel would have killed her but his threats invoke a seriously dangerous belief system that can and has led to violence against women, Ratushny wrote.

The judge noted that Al Mezel, who came from Kuwait 20 years ago, is a community leader — a founder of his mosque, city council candidate and representative of 1,500 taxi drivers.  

31st July 2009. See article from humanevents.com

Four Muslim women died recently in a 'car accident' near Kingston, Ontario, and Kingston police are investigating: the teenage girls Zainab Shafia, Sahar Shafia and Geeti Shafia, along with their 'aunt' Rona Amir Mohammed. Investigators are now saying that the girls’ parents and their brother conspired to dump the car into the Kingston Mills Locks on the Rideau Canal on June 30, and then lied to police in saying that the incident was an accident.' The girls’ father, Mohammed Shafia, originally claimed that the four had gone on a joyride with the eldest, Zainab Shafia, driving. Yet Zainab Shafia had no driver’s license. What father or mother would throw a daughter the keys to a car when the girl had no license, and allow the teen to take her younger sisters with her? Does that not sound totally out of character for a parent? The Kingston police think so, and now they’re calling this a 'Muslim honor killing'.

Diba Masoomi, who has been described in media reports as Mohammed Shafia’s sister, said that the girls’ father believed his daughter had dishonoured him and the family by having a romance with a young Pakistani man in Montreal. Another source close to the family says: The girls were not allowed to go out alone, for example, neither to the cinema nor to meet friends and they were not able to dress freely.”Their father “often criticized the influence of the Western culture on his family since they were not living in an Islamic country anymore.

12th May 2009. See article from stophonourkillings.com

A Canadian court heard that Hasibullah Sadiqi shot his sister and her fiancee because he believed she had brought dishonour on his family by getting engaged without their father's consent.

In his opening address to a jury of seven men and five women at the start of Sadiqi's trial, Crown attorney Mark Moors said he will prove Sadiqi planned to kill his sister Khatera after she became engaged to Feroz Mangal.

Moors said Sadiqi, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, was angered by his sister‚s decisions and believed they were in contrary to their family's Afghan heritage.

A big brother normally watches out for his younger sister, said Moors. A big brother is someone a younger sister turns to for advice and protection. In this case, Khatera Sadiqi's big brother did none of this. Instead, he emptied a .44 revolver into her and her fiancee.

7th July 2009. See article from stophonourkillings.com

Prosecutors in Chechnya say they have detained a young man accused of shooting his sister to death in an honor killing.

Prosecutors say the young man has confessed to killing his sister with multiple gunshots because of her immoral behavior.

Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov said recently that some of the victims were rightfully shot by their male relatives for their «loose morals.

Kadyrov has carried out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya.

25th October 2009. See article from islamineurope.blogspot.com, Thanks to Alan

Immigrant women in Finland are increasingly the victims of violence perpetrated in the name of family honour. In Helsinki, twice as many immigrant women have sought protection this year from violence than in previous years.

Nasima Razmyar, who herself came to Finland as a refugee from Afghanistan, has been taking in growing numbers of immigrant women and girls at the Monika House shelter. Some of these women have been forced into marriages, some beaten for disobedience or even threatened with death.

This year, within just six months more than 30 women have sought refuge from honour violence at the facility. That is as many as during the whole of last year.

However, police believe that only a small fraction, probably less that 5% of all honour violence incidents come to light. The seriousness of the phenomenon is not understood, even by the officials dealing with it.

30th April 2009. See article from islamineurope.blogspot.com, Thanks to Alan

A Muslim parents arrested for violently preventing their children from Westernizing

It started off as a simple runaway case. Two sisters aged 15 and 18, of Turkish origin, were reported missing.

The Meximieux police found their two hours later, but their investigation did not end there. They discovered that the two sisters were regularly subjected to violence by their parents, who did not accept their wish not to live according to their very rigorous life principles. Fundamentalist Muslims, the parents do not tolerate seeing them in Western clothing, visiting friends, or pursuing their studies. They were also forbidden to watch French television.

The parents will be tried by the court for violence by a person of authority towards a minor.

13th February 2010. Thanks to Alan.

The 37-year-old Ebtisam M, a mom of four, was beheaded in Kerpen-Horrem (in Northrhein-Westphalia, Germany).

Her children (6, 11, 14 and 16 years old) found the body in a pool of blood. In addition, the fingers were cut off the victim. Judging according to the Arabic name of the victim, it deals possibly with an honor beheading with amputation.

District Attorney Alf Willwacher, however, wishes to render no commentary regarding the kind of injuries.

The Cologne Homicide Commission is still groping in the dark in their search for the brutal murderer, even though the husband, S., was coincidentally found cleaning out the apartment, and then he was picked up by a friend: He is considered a witness, not a suspect. There is still no suspect, and the weapon still hasn't been found either.

  Father murders daughter over Western lifestyle

1st January 2010. Thanks to Alan. See article from earthtimes.org

A German court imprisoned a Kurdish man, 50, for life for ordering the honour killing of his own daughter after being told she had lost her virginity. A son and an Azeri friend lured the 20-year-old woman, Gulsum, to a lonely country road near the Dutch border, throttled her with a rope and clubbed her to death, inflicting horrific injuries to her face.

German authorities have vowed to stamp out the archaic custom among some Kurds, Turks and other ethnic groups of families murdering their own members who offend family honour through sexual relationships. Social workers had earlier tried to protect Gulsum.

The state court at Kleve sentenced Gulsum's brother, 20, to nine and a half years in youth prison, just short of the maximum youth sentence of 10 years. He and the victim were two out of three triplets. He had confessed to the killing after he was arrested.

His helper was jailed for seven and a half years.

Judges said they were convinced the only motive to murder Gulsum had been that she was no longer a virgin and had secretly undergone an abortion.

They said they were also convinced the father of 10, who denied the murder, had ordered his son to kill the sister.

29th June 2009. Thanks to Alan

A Turkish dad stabbed his own 15-year-old daughter to death in an honour killing which has shocked Germany.

Mehmet A sneaked into Buersa's bedroom at 3.30am and repeatedly struck the helpless teen with a knife.

Her grandparents called an ambulance but medics could not do anything for Buersa as she bled to death.

The kebab shop owner confessed in a hearing to the Criminal Investigation Department.
As a motive behind the crime, he said: Both had very dissimilar life outlooks which kept leading to differences between them. Buersa wore a head scarf but she did not want her strict Muslim father to control her life.

Friends described how the western lifestyle of his daughter made Mehmet A angry.

23rd June 2009. See article from indianexpress.com, Thanks to Alan

In a suspected honour killing, a man allegedly beheaded his daughter who was insisting on marrying her lover in Rampur district.

Shaukat Saifi was arrested after he allegedly beheaded his daughter Naseem with a sharp edged weapon, police said.

While Naseem wanted to marry Yasin, a resident of the same village, her father was opposed to the alliance, they said.

19th September 2009. See article from adnkronos.com, Thanks to Alan

A Moroccan man is facing murder charges after allegedly stabbing his 18-year-old daughter to death for falling in love with an older man in a small northern Italian town.

Sanaa Dafani was stabbed in the throat while she was sitting in a car with her 31-year-old boyfriend. Her father, El Ketawi Dafani was later detained by police and interrogated overnight.

There is also widespread speculation that El Ketawi Dafani, believed to be a Muslim, objected to religious differences between his daughter and her boyfriend and their plans to live together.

According to media reports, the victim's father blocked the car and threatened his daughter. Her boyfriend Massimo De Biasio tried to protect her from the attack and was injured in an alleged assault from the father. De Biasio raised the alarm and was then taken to a local hospital in Pordenone where he underwent surgery for minor injuries to his abdomen and his hands.

21st July 2009. See article from jordantimes.com, Thanks to Alan

A 20-year-old Jordanian stabbed his married sister and smashed her head with a rock after accusing her of immoral behaviour.

The suspect stabbed his younger sister 20 times with a kitchen knife before smashing her head with a rock inside the family's home on Thursday night, in Nozha in east Amman, an official told Agence France-Presse. He handed himself over to police and confessed to the crime, claiming that he wanted to cleanse his honour after he found her with a man and because her behaviour was immoral.

11th July 2009. See article from realcourage.org, Thanks to Alan

A court on has halved the jail term of a 29-year-old Jordanian man who shot his raped sister 12 times in the name of honour, a judicial official said.

The criminal court initially sentenced the man to 15 years with hard labour for killing his sister in 2008 in Mowaqqar, southeast of the capital Amman, but immediately reduced it to seven-and-a-half years.

The woman disappeared from home for six months after she was raped last year, the official said: Police kept the woman in custody for protection and later handed her over to the family, but the brother shot her 12 times in different parts of her body once she arrived home, killing her immediately.

16th May 2009. See article from jordantimes.com, Thanks to Alan

Criminal Prosecutor Ahmad Omari charged two brothers with the premeditated murder of their married sister in the latest so-called honour crime.

The 30-year-old woman, a mother of six, was reportedly stabbed to death with a switchblade, allegedly by her brothers aged, 44 and 19, at her father's home.

The two suspects then headed to the nearest police station and turned themselves in, claiming to have killed their sister to cleanse their family's honour.

25th September 2009. See article from capitalfm.co.ke, Thanks to Alan

Achieng is a five-year-old girl who has for the past two weeks been lying in bed suffering from malaria. Her parents and other relatives don't believe in modern medicine, saying that it opens doors for evil.

Achieng's condition gets worse and she slips into unconsciousness. Instead of her parents rushing her to hospital, they kneel beside her and pray. By the time they figure out that God also works through people (read doctors), it is a tad too late. Achieng dies.

The above scenario depicts a real life situation in one part of the country. Religious fanatics exist everywhere in the world and Kenya is no exception. The extent they go to vary from digging underground chambers as escape from nuclear gases to using prayers in place of medicine.

We do not take our sick to hospital because it amounts to putting the doctors before our Lord. We believe that our faith will cure the sick, says Njoroge Mwangi.

He is an Archbishop with the African Mission of Holy Ghost Church .

26th September 2009. See article from minivannews.com, Thanks to Alan

Police raided a house on Laamu atoll Fonadhoo today following reports of an illegal marriage involving a girl around nine years of age.

Speaking to Minivan News today, Fathimath Yumna, director of the department of gender, said the ministry of health and family had also been unable to confirm reports about the illegal marriage.

While the national age of marriage is 18 in the Maldives, as a Muslim country, girls under this age can marry with the permission of their parents and state consent.

Yumna said if a minor wished to marry, the ministry would undertake an assessment to ensure the physical and mental well-being of the child. But, she added most applications were from girls aged 16 to 18.

It's a minority of religious groups but they are coming up presently, she said. We do have such issues and we are trying to raise awareness.

Last week, President Mohamed Nasheed called for an investigation into reports about under-age concubines being kept by religious extremists in the Maldives.

While police, the Human Rights Commission Maldives and the ministry of health had all received several reports of under-age girls being used for sex, none have been able to confirm the identities of those involved.

Yumna said if the reports are confirmed, the ministry would strive to counter the religious beliefs behind concubinage in collaboration with the ministry of Islamic affairs.

5th July 2009. See article from dawn.com, Thanks to Alan

A monitoring exercise conducted by the law firm AGHS shows that from April to June this year, 122 cases of women being burnt were reported in Lahore.

Of them, 21 women had acid burns while the rest were injured by direct exposure to flames. Forty victims died.

Disturbingly, the figures have doubled as compared to the first quarter of the year. These cases constitute merely the tip of the frightening iceberg of violence against Pakistan's women. The figures reported above apply to Lahore but are unlikely to be lower in other parts of the country. Indeed, one wonders how many cases go unreported.

The forms of coercion range from emotional and economic abuse to gross violations of constitutional and human rights, including rape, burning and being handed over as settlement in disputes. Last year, at least two women were believed to have been buried alive in Balochistan. That a sitting parliamentarian defended the act as a tribal custom reflects just how endemic violence against women has become in the country.

5th July 2009. See article from thenews.com.pk, Thanks to Alan

Hamza Labano, father of 13-year-old Nasima Labano, deposed before a court that owing to some dispute between his family and Abdul Sattar Labano over the matter of kids, the latter had threatened them that they would damage his (Hamza’s) honour so that he could not live respectfully in society.

He told the court that one of his relatives Anwar Khan along with his 10 accomplices kidnapped Nasima and took her to the residence of Abdul Sattar where 10 people raped her brutally.

Nasima Labano was gang-raped by 11 people, of whom three are still at large.

1st July 2009. See article from news.com.au, Thanks to Alan

Relatives of a Pakistani teenager who eloped and married without parental consent shot her dead in a raid on her new home which also killed her husband and in-laws, police said.

Dressed in police uniforms, dozens of relatives attacked the bridegroom's house in the district of Charsadda, in North West Frontier Province.

The assailants took the bridegroom out while some of the attackers climbed the wall and entered the house. They killed the bride, the mother and sister of the bridegroom, said Charsadda district police official Saleem Jan: They beat them first and then shot them dead.

The groom's father was also killed, another police official told AFP. The bride was aged 18 to 19 and the groom 29 to 30.

Police said the teenager, from the deeply conservative Mardan district next to Charsadda, had run away and recently married without telling her parents.

27th June 2009. See article from dailytimes.com.pk, Thanks to Alan

Kiran Shehzadi (21), who was allegedly set on fire by her husband, is in critical condition. She has burn injuries to 80% of her body, including her face, head, arms, hands, chest, belly, sensitive body parts and thighs.

Kiran’s husband Mir Ali allegedly threw petrol on her and then lit her, while she was asleep at night. The victim’s mother alleged that Ali had asked her daughter to ask her parents for Rs 50,000. She said Ali burnt the girl after she refused to meet the demand.

Rubina said Ali, a mason by profession, had been telling Kiran to ask her parents to arrange Rs 50,000 for a long time. She said on the day of the incident he insisted that she bring the money, and set her on fire when she refused. Rubina said Kiran had already provided Ali a lot of money borrowed from her parents during the 16 months of their marriage.

16th June 2009. See article from asianews.it, Thanks to Alan

In 2008 in Pakistan 6,780 cases of violence committed on minors took place: sexual abuse, targeted murders, abductions, forced labour and suicides are only some example of this, to which the exploitation of “child soldiers” in the war between Islamic fundamentalism and the army, must be added. The 2008 report on the Condition of Children in Pakistan –released by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) – underlines the governments failure to apply national and international law in protection of the rights of minors.

The Pakistani rights group report lists corporal punishment, the wound of street children, child brides and acid attacks, that mark the young lives forever. It urges a clamping down on child pornography and demands that the minimum age to marry is raised from 16 to 18.

The report cites a study by the Initiator Human Development Foundation in 2008, saying children from the lower strata of society studying at the madrasse religious schools also fall victim to sexual violence. The study claims seminary teachers sexually abused 21 % of sample students.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (Hrcp) also warns of abuse and mistreatment of minors. The 2008 document on human rights reports that that at least 114 children were killed for various reasons, including for honour killings, and at least 221 girls and several hundred boys were reported to have been raped, gang-raped, subjected to sodomy or stripped in public. In the nations cities an estimated 700,000 children live and work on the streets; while in rural areas across Pakistan children are being recruited by armed militias and trained for terrorist attacks.

19th May 2009. See article from dailytimes.com.pk, Thanks to Alan

The family of a young girl killed in cold blood by her husband and mother-in-law has been shuttling between the offices of Regional Police Officer (RPO) Nasir Khan Durrani and City Police Officer (CPO) Rao Muhammad Iqbal for justice for over two months but of no avail.

Blinking back his tears, Usman Ali, the brother of ill-fated Saba Sehar, 22, told Daily Times in a choked voice that his sister was married to Azhar Aziz, a resident of Adiala Road, last year.

He said in February this year Azhar in assistance with his mother, Azizun Nisa, beat his sister in revenge for not giving the hand of their youngest sister to his younger brother. They beat Saba black and blue, and when she collapsed on the floor from torture and demanded water, Azhar poured acid in her mouth.

Usman said that his family shifted Saba to Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital (BBSH) where she succumbed to injuries on March 13.

2nd May 2009. See article from dailytimes.com.pk , Thanks to Alan

Pashto female singer Shamim Aiman Udas was killed on Sunday, police said.

Her husband Usman reported at Paharipura Police Station that the singer’s brothers Alamgir and Ismaeel were not happy with her having singing profession despite their disapproval.

They (allegedly) opened fire on her near Koochi Plaza and killed her.

Police registered a case against the two accused.

  Bottled Up Anger

27th April 2009. See article from thenews.com.pk, Thanks to Alan

A man killed his wife with strokes of glass to her chest for her ‘inability’ to bear him a son in Lahore's Factory Area.

Victim Aasia Bibi was married off to her cousin Umar. The couple had two dumb daughters. The accused worried for not having a son and he used to fight with his wife over the issue.

On Monday, Umar found his Aasia alone at home and killed her with consecutive strokes of a broken glass bottle to her chest. As a result, the victim received serious wounds which resulted into her instant death.

27th April 2009. See article from dawn.com, Thanks to Alan

A heavily-indebted man gave his eight-year-old daughter in marriage to a 50-year-old moneylender to clear the debt in the Jungal village in Jacobabad district.

Sources in the village said that Mohammad Siddiq Shaikh had taken a loan of Rs50,000 on heavy interest from one Nihal Chachar of Pano Akil, which had swollen to Rs150,000 with Rs100,000 interest over 30 months, and Nihal had been pushing him to pay back but Siddiq was unable to clear the debt.

Nihal asked him to give his minor daughter Zamiran in marriage to him to get the debt cleared, sources said and added that Siddiq first rejected the proposal but he had to agree after being subjected to maltreatment and threats by Nihal and his accomplices.

He called schoolteacher and moulavi Inayatullah Soomro who solemnised his daughter’s nikkah with Nihal.

6th September 2009. See article from arabnews.com, Thanks to Alan

A young woman has been given refuge at a woman’s shelter after she filed a lawsuit against her father who she claims has been sexually abusing her since the age of three.

The woman spoke about how she took the case to court and that a judge ordered her to undergo a mental checkup, saying she was either insane or bewitched. Her case is currently pending and if the judge rules against her then there is a possibility she might be returned to her abusive father.

Suzan Al-Mashhadi, a social worker and author, told Arab News that gaining the trust of abused women is a big challenge. This case is a perfect example of the dilemma women face. This father is a monster but when he appears in court he will have prayer beads in his hands and act like the most decent man in the world. Then what happens? The judge instantly thinks the young woman is accusing her father wrongfully for some ulterior motive, she said.

All this happened to this poor young woman and till this date there has been no ruling that her father should undergo a mental check-up or a personality analysis, said Al-Mashhadi.

11th October 2009. See article from todayszaman.com, Thanks to Alan

Prosecutors have demanded life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murder of a woman from a Diyarbakir village, allegedly by her father and uncle.

An investigation started after the body of 19-year-old Tuba Kılıç was found three days after she went missing, is complete and the prosecution has pressed charges against her father, M., and her uncle, A., accusing them of premeditated murder within the context of an honor killing. In the charges filed against them, the prosecution alleges that during the period of time that the woman was missing, her father and uncle went about their lives as usual, spending time playing games at the local coffeehouse and failing to express any expected reaction at her absence. The family did not report her as missing to any authorities, telling other villagers that they had left the incident to God.

Kılıç's body was found by an old marble refinery near the village. An autopsy revealed that she had died three days before the gruesome discovery, and while there were no signs of sexual assault, she had an 18-centimeter cut across her neck.

16th September 2009. See article from news.yahoo.com, thanks to Alan

A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization has said.
Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on while giving birth to a stillborn.

Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country's females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.

Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, said Ahmed al-Quraishi, chairman of Siyaj human rights organization, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen: This is one of many cases that exist in Yemen. The reason behind it is the lack of education and awareness, forcing many girls into marriage in this very early age.

Impoverished parents in Yemen sometimes give away their young daughters in return for hefty dowries. There is also a long-standing tribal custom in which infant daughters and sons are promised to cousins in hopes it will protect them from illicit relationships, he said.