The case of a tortured Afghan child bride that shocked the world will be taken directly to President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday, a lawyer for a women’s group said. Sahar Gul, 15, who was burned and beaten and had her fingernails pulled out after she defied efforts to force her into prostitution, was found in the basement of her husband’s house in northeastern Baghlan province last month.
The girl, who had been locked in a toilet there for six months, is still traumatised and barely able to speak of her ordeal but wants her husband and in-laws jailed, said Afghan Women’s Network lawyer Wida Latif. “We met her a couple of day ago, and when she saw us she burst into tears,” Latif told AFP Tuesday.
“She still suffers from trauma, and still has bruises all over her body. She cannot speak a lot but she told us ‘I want my husband and in-laws sent to prison’. “She needs special care. We will meet the president tomorrow and ask him to give her a place to live in, or else she will be taken to a women’s shelter and will be forgotten like many other women who live in those shelters.”
