Forced To Marry Her Rapist A Moroccan Girl Commits Suicide

As much as we might rail against things like same-sex marriage or the fact that women have become the new morality political football our problems seem so inconsequential when compared to what women in foreign countries are forced to deal with.

For all the confusion around how laws in our country deal with women they pale in comparison to the laws, mostly based around religion or family name and reputation that exist in countries elsewhere in the world.

Case in point is the story of a young Moroccan girl who was raped by an older man and then forced to marry her rapist. The Moroccan law states that anyone who rapes a female under the age of 18 can receive immunity from criminal charges as long as they marry the minor girl that they raped.

It has been noted by some in the country that under Moroccan law no-one can be forced into marriage against their will but that didn’t stop stop young Amina from ingesting rat poison on the weekend as the last resort open to her in order to escape being married to the man who had raped her.

What is being suggested is that the girl’s family, along with the family of the rapist, came to an agreement that the two should marry even though he was ten years her senior. The deal was made in order to preserve the “honor” of the family of the daughter who had been raped.

So in this case it was a combination of an age old unspoken law and the desire to protect family honor that resulted in a young girls being put into a position where her only way out was by committing suicide.

via BuzzFeed