Just 15 years old, Sahar Gul has become the bruised and bloodied face of women’s rights in Afghanistan.
The teenage bride’s eyes were swollen nearly shut as she was wheeled into the hospital seven months after her arranged marriage. Black scabs crusted her fingertips where her nails used to be.
According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, Gul’s in-laws kept her in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers all in an attempt to force her into prostitution.
Police freed her after her uncle called authorities.
The horrific images, captured by television news cameras last week, transfixed Afghanistan and set off a storm of condemnation. President Hamid Karzai set up a commission to investigate, and his health minister visited her bedside.
Police arrested her in-laws, who denied abusing her. A warrant was issued for her husband, who serves in the Afghan army.
The case highlights both the problems and the progress of women 10 years after the Taliban’s fall. Gul’s egregious wounds and underage wedlock are a reminder that girls and women still suffer shocking abuse. But the public outrage and the government’s response to it also show that the country is slowly changing.
“Let’s break the dead silence on women’s plight,” read the title of an editorial Wednesday in the Afghanistan Times.
For now, Gul remains in a Kabul hospital, where she transfered from a local hospital in Baghlan province. An Afghan official said this week that she will be sent to India for further medical treatment. It’s unclear where she will go when she returns to Afghanistan.
Despite guaranteed rights and progressive new laws, Afghanistan still ranks as the world’s sixth-worst country for women’s equality in the UN Development Programme’s annual Gender Inequality Index.