Post by rosa on Jan 9, 2009 5:16:57 GMT -7
Afghan held for sister's alleged ad hoc abortion
Associated Press Writer Amir Shah And Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 49 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan
The mother and brother of a 14-year-old girl who was raped are facing prosecution for allegedly performing an abortion on her in a cattle shed in central Afghanistan, officials said.
The 21-year-old brother has confessed to cutting her stomach open with a razor blade and removing and burying the fetus, said Ewaz Khan, police chief of Bamiyan province.
The girl was in critical condition Friday at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, having been flown there the night before for treatment, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Bagram doctors said the girl had been about five months pregnant, and they classified the operation as a "traumatic c-section," according to Mathias.
The abortion was performed about nine days ago, using no anesthesia. The incisions were then stitched up with a thick string usually used to sew up potato sacks, said Gulam Mohammad Nader, one of the doctors who subsequently treated the girl in the provincial capital. He said the wound became dangerously infected.
The mother and brother could not be reached for comment. Khan said the mother was in a remote area that was difficult to reach by phone, and an official overseeing the prison where the brother is being held said he did not have the authority to put the man on the phone. It was not clear if the two had obtained lawyers yet.
Abortion is illegal in Afghanistan except if the mother's health is in danger. Even in those cases, a panel of three doctors has to approve the operation, said Dr. Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the health ministry.
Families in the deeply conservative country — where there are strong taboos against sex outside of marriage — often got to extreme lengths to conceal rape, which can destroy a victim's reputation and future. Girls who are raped have little chance of ever getting married and married women are often shunned by their husbands. The victim and her family are tainted with the shame of the act and the woman is often accused of having consented to the sex.
Nader said the girl told him that she had not known her mother and brother's plan when they took her into the cattle shed. She said they wrestled her to the ground and held her down while they cut her stomach open. She blacked out for much of the ordeal, but she said she remembered seeing her brother hold up the fetus.
Police have recovered the body of the fetus, and both the brother and the man accused of raping the girl have been arrested, Khan said. Police also plan to arrest the mother, he said, but are waiting to take her into custody because she is an 11-hour trip away and recovering from recently giving birth herself.
The ad hoc operation was discovered when the girl failed to recover after about four days at home and her father brought her to a small hospital near their village, Nader said. The father told doctors there she had been bitten by a dog, but physicians discovered the truth upon examining her.
A doctor there called provincial health officials who told them to get her to Bamiyan as quickly and quietly as possible.
"I told him to keep it low profile, because I was worried they (the parents) would kill her" to keep it quiet, said Ihsanullah Shahir, the head of the province's health department. She arrived at Bamiyan hospital Tuesday.
Nader, the physician, said she had been flow to Bagram because Bamiyan Hospital did not have specialized equipment needed to repair damage done to her internal organs.