Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped In Pakistan . . . Village Elders Order Her Killed As “Black Virgin”

We have yet another story of a rape victim subjected to a demand for an honor killing in a traditional Muslim area. Kainat Soomro was gang-raped by four men at the age of 13. According to their religious and cultural traditions, her village classed her as a “Kari” or “black virgin” and ordered her killed. The family was attacked by the four men and other villagers and one of the sons was murdered after they refused to carry out the “honor” killing.

This nightmare unfolded in the rural village of Dadu in southern Pakistan and was chronicled in a new film “Outlawed in Pakistan.” Kainat was raped after walking home from school down a narrow village street. As she passed a shop owned by Shaban Saikh, he says that he and three other men including a father and son held her down and assaulted her. The rapists are accused of beating the father and one of her brothers and then the oldest brother disappeared (and was found murdered). This was all done in conformity with a bizarre religious code as a moral course of action.

The film shows how Kainat was faced with a hostile judge who attacked her for accusing a father and a son. The men were acquitted and she was found to lack “good character. If she was a decent woman, she would have sat at home, silent.”

Source: AU