KUNDUZ, Afghanistan ? The policeman spoke with calm and assurance as he insisted that he could not have raped the teenage daughter of a local sheepherder, because a mullah had married them just before intercourse.
?Once the marriage contract is done, any sexual intercourse is not considered rape,? said Khodaidad, 42, who until he was detained in the case had worked for the American-trained Afghan Local Police.
His brother Ghulam Sakhi, accused by the young woman of participating in her abduction, sat beside Khodaidad on the floor of a small traditional reception room at the provincial jail here. He chimed in: ?In Pashtun culture, the girls do not have the right to say who they marry and who they don?t want to marry. Whomever their parents choose for them, they should marry.?
Neither man has been formally charged, and both deny the abduction and rape allegations.
Prosecutors, family members and human rights advocates vehemently disagree with the suspects? description of what happened to Lal Bibi, the young woman: They say there is little doubt that she was abducted and raped and that there was no marriage. They also challenge the idea that any marriage in such circumstances could be legitimate or exonerate the rape. Forced marriage is illegal under Afghan law, said Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi, the military prosecutor in Kunduz.
However, for many people here, including the Kunduz police chief and the spokesman for the Interior Ministry ? both of whom insisted that the case involved forced marriage, not rape ? the former appeared to be less objectionable, although others would regard the line between the two as thin.
Interviews with more than a dozen people connected to the case suggest that much more is at stake than the fate of an 18-year-old sheepherder?s daughter. Her plight illuminates the persistence of tribal custom, the fragility of newly legislated protections for women, and the power of armed men.
What constitutes rape is only one of the contentious issues in this case, which first came to light about a month ago, when Lal Bibi and her family took the rare step of going public with their accusations. The case galvanized President Hamid Karzai, who ordered that the culprits be brought to justice and that the police unit involved be disarmed.
However, some members of Afghanistan?s National Security Council argued that pursuing the allegations could tarnish the image of the Afghan Local Police, a network of American-trained militias they view as essential to maintaining security and keeping the Taliban at bay.
While sharing the goal of security, prosecutors and human rights advocates want to show that this is a new Afghanistan, where the rule of the gun should not trump the rule of law.
?The problem is that these people are illiterate and uneducated,? said General Safi, the military prosecutor, speaking of the police, particularly the unit involved in the case. ?They haven?t been told their job description, they don?t have a code of conduct, most are former militia members who still have the mentality they had 15 years ago ? they still think they can kill with impunity, rape with impunity.?
?I am very supportive of the Afghan Local Police program,? he added, ?It?s a very good program, but I am very critical of the recruitment and selection process.? Still, General Safi said, despite the program?s flaws, as a prosecutor he would much prefer to deal with the local police, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry, giving him greater authority to act than is the case with other armed groups.
Amid all the shouting, Lal Bibi and her family are very unsure whether justice will be done or whether they will be forever humiliated in their community for having a daughter who, by Pashtun tribal traditions, has been tarnished. Families in similar circumstances sometimes kill the victims because of the perceived dishonor.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=96889ae3ecb106056855b4719deff3c8
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