Rape victim marries rapist to save her life and that of her child

I still have trouble wrapping my head around this article because I just cannot prevent myself from judging it within a Western perspective. Rape is a crime of power, not sex and those who rape do so out of a need to control and exert power through sexual force. In Islam, rape is a crime of honor with all the responsibility of that rape on the shoulders of the woman. It is her fault that a man couldn't control himself, it is her fault she is now pregnant and it is her fault that her family is now seen to have no honor, honor which can be regained through the victims death. That honor can also be partially restored if the victim marries the rapist. I know, it makes no sense, and yet is another example of the disconnect between Islam and both human and women's rights.

So it comes down to one of two horrible choices: 12 years behind bars for being raped, or marry your rapist so the child will have a father and mother. With Islam's patriarchal dogma against women now 1400 years old, the marriage will end up being as much punishment as the years in prison. This is religiously inculcated discrimination.

This is Islam.

From CNN November 22 by Nick Paton Walsh and Masoud Popalza

Afghan woman's choice: 12 years in jail or marry her rapist and risk death

Kabul (CNN) -- The ordeal of Gulnaz did not simply begin and end with the physical attack of her rape. The rape began a years-long nightmare of further pain, culminating in an awful choice she must now make.

Even two years later, Gulnaz remembers the smell and state of her rapist's clothes when he came into the house when her mother left for a brief visit to the hospital.

"He had filthy clothes on as he does metal and construction work. When my mother went out, he came into my house and he closed doors and windows. I started screaming, but he shut me up by putting his hands on my mouth," she said.

The rapist was her cousin's husband.

After the attack, she hid what happened as long as she could. But soon she began vomiting in the mornings and showing signs of pregnancy. It was her attacker's child.

In Afghanistan, this brought her not sympathy, but prosecution. Aged just 19, she was found guilty by the courts of sex outside of marriage -- adultery -- and sentenced to twelve years in jail.

Now inside Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, she and her child are serving her sentence together.

Sitting with the baby in her lap, her face carefully covered, she explains the only choice she has that would end her incarceration.

The only way around the dishonor of rape, or adultery in the eyes of Afghans, is to marry her attacker. This will, in the eyes of some, give her child a family and restore her honor.

Incredibly, this is something that Gulnaz is willing to do.

"I was asked if I wanted to start a new life by getting released, by marrying this man", she told CNN in an exclusive interview. "My answer was that one man dishonored me, and I want to stay with that man."

Tending to her daughter in the jail's cold, she added: "My daughter is a little innocent child. Who knew I would have a child in this way. A lot of people told me that after your daughter's born give it to someone else, but my aunt told me to keep her as proof of my innocence."

Gulnaz's choice is stark. Women in her situation are often killed for the shame their ordeal has brought the community. She is at risk, some say, from her attacker's family.

We found Gulnaz's convicted rapist in a jail across town. While he denied raping her, he agreed that she would likely be killed if she gets out of jail. But he insists that it will be her family, not his, that will kill her, "out of shame."

Whether threatened by his family or hers, for now, jail may be the safest place for her.

Shockingly, Gulnaz's case is common in Afghanistan.

Why is it shocking? Because those who want to see Islam as a religion of peace will not let any bad thoughts cloud their thinking, and when something dark does manage to intrude they are shocked, shocked I tell you that this could be happening. Hand-wringing and the gnashing of teeth usually follows.

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