A 19-Year-Old Girl Was Stoned To Death For Running Away From Her Forced Marriage
The man she was eloping with was let off with only a lashing.
By Sadho Ram — 05 Nov 2015, 02:53 AM
Recently, a chilling video footage, showing the brutal stoning of a 19-year-old Afghan girl, identified only as Rokhshana, went viral
The footage, extremely graphic in nature, shows a group of turbaned men surround the young woman as she stands in a neck-deep pit dug into the stony ground, with only her head poking above the surface.
A video still of men stoning Rokhshana in Ghor province, Afghanistan.
Image via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/AFP/Getty ImagesThen the turbaned men begin to pick up stones and hurl them at her with increasing intensity from a close range while a crowd of onlookers capture the living horror on their mobile phones
As a barrage of stones strike at her with sickening thuds, Rokhshana's voice can be heard growing increasingly high-pitched as she repeatedly and desperately professes her Muslim faith by repeating the shahada.
According to the Tolo news agency, the barbaric killing took place about a week ago, sometime during the last week of October, in a Taliban-controlled area just outside Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province, reported The BBC.
Her crime?
She ran away with a man much younger than the person she was forcibly married to.
According to Seema Joyenda, the governor of Ghor province, Rokhshana had been forced to marry against her will and recently fled with another man. However, the couple were caught after two days, and the Taliban leader of the village ordered that Rokhshana be stoned to death for adultery.
The man she was eloping with was let off with only a lashing
"The custom and culture of rural Afghanistan is much more strict, girls cannot simply run from home in the hope of a better life," said Maryam Muhammadi, an Afghan youth and women's activist in Kabul.
"It is absurd that the government of Afghanistan lets this happen."
Seema Joyenda, the governor of Ghor province, said that while this is the first incident in the area this year, it will not be the last.
As The BBC reports, mob killings are not uncommon in Afghanistan.
In March a woman called Farkhunda was savagely beaten and set ablaze in central Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a copy of the Koran.
The murder triggered protests across the country and led to global condemnation of the treatment of Afghan women.
Afghan activist women carry the coffin of Farkhunda, who was lynched by an angry mob in central Kabul.
Image via Al Jazeera/AFP