Criminal justice system in Afghanistan fails girl

Sahar Gul can be forgiven if her definition of justice is an eye for an eye — a finger nail for a finger nail, and clumps of hair for clumps of hair.

The photographs of the 13-year-old Afghan girl certainly justify her desire for revenge. After all, her childhood was stolen from her.

According to CNN, her husband, a member of the Afghan army, raped her, and her in-laws locked her in the basement for months because she did not immediately get pregnant. They tortured her with hot pokers and ripped out her nails. They even wanted to force her into prostitution as punishment for failing her obligation as a woman, the now 14-year-old told the network.

Gul, who was rescued by authorities after neighbors heard her screams from the basement, appeared at the sentencing of three of the attackers and was justifiably enraged at the 10-year prison terms.

“Ten years is not enough,” she told CNN reporters. “They should have been given 50 years.” The teenager is staying in a safe house where more than a dozen other women are being counseled after experiencing horrific treatment.

“They should be punished in the prison,” she said. “They hurt my eyes and pulled out my nail and hair, and the same should be done to them. Whatever they did to me, the same should be done to them”

She is afraid for her life because her husband has not been found and is a threat. Gul, who is still married to the man who raped her, says it may not be safe for her to continue living in Afghanistan.

The international community, led by human rights groups, should arrange for her leave Afghanistan and find her a place where she can live in peace and safety.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration, which insists that the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is committed to protecting the rights of women, should look into Gul’s case and determine whether the laws that have been passed are adequate and provide the safeguards that women in Afghanistan have sought for so long.

During the five years the Islamist extremist Taliban were in power, women were literally indentured servants. They had no rights, were expected to serve the men and were prohibited from working. Girls were not allowed to attend school.

Progress

To be sure, there has been some progress made since the U.S.-led military coalition invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America’s homeland and overthrew the Taliban rulers.

But the case of the teenager Sahar Gul makes it clear there’s still a lot to be done before Afghanistan can call itself a true democracy. Having free elections is one thing. Ensuring equal treatment under the law is quite another.

For his part, President Karzai should announce that when the victim’s husband is found and brought to justice, he expects the court system to give this case the serious consideration it deserves.

The United States, which has paid a very high price over the past 10 years to ensure that Afghanistan does not return to the dark days of the Taliban and the terrorist organization al-Qaida, has a right to expect that the law will protect the vulnerable.