"Sixteen-year-old Sabera, with a pretty yellow head scarf, frets that she is missing school. 'I was about to get engaged, and the boy came to ask me himself, before sending his parents. A lady in our neighbourhood saw us, and called the police,' she explains. She was sentenced to three years but, in an act of mercy, it was shortened to 18 months . . ."
The BBC reports from an Afghan women's prison.
According to Afghanistan's Ministry for Women's Affairs, "about half of Afghanistan's 476 women prisoners were detained for 'moral crimes'" -- a broad category that includes "running away from home" (often fleeing domestic violence), "refusing to marry," and "marrying against their family's wishes."
Reporting on a different Afghan prison in 2008, The Independent noted that most of the women there were in prison for being raped.
More: Al Jazeera video from 2007.
(Cross-posted on Metafilter. First link via my mom, Ann Althouse.)
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