"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." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Ending abuse of women is a huge challenge in a patriarchal society where traditional practices include child marriage, giving girls away to settle debts or pay for their relatives' crimes and so-called honor killings in which girls seen as disgracing their families are murdered by their relatives. And some women activists worry that their hard-won political rights may erode as foreign troops withdraw and Karzai's government seeks to negotiate with the Taliban to end their insurgency. Women's rights, they fear, may be the first to go in any deal with the hardline Islamic militants. "I'm afraid we won't have all this anymore if the Taliban are allowed back into society," said Sima Natiq, a longtime activist. Freedoms for women are one of the most visible — and symbolic — changes in Afghanistan since 2001 U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime. Aside from their support for al-Qaida leaders, the Taliban are probably most notorious for their harsh treatment of women under their severe interpretation of Islamic law. For five years, the regime banned women from working and going to school, or even leaving home without a male relative. In public, all women were forced wear a head-to-toe burqa veil, which covers even the face with a mesh panel. Violators were publicly flogged or executed. Freeing women from such draconian laws lent a moral air to the Afghan war. As U.S. troops begin to draw down, activists say Afghanistan is unmistakably a better place to be born female than a decade ago." - Anne Bouey

Grrr! - Spidra Webster

"Still, for every improvement, there are other signs of women's continued misery. The U.N. says more than half of Afghanistan's female prison population is made up of women sentenced by local courts for fleeing their marriages — the charge is often phrased as "intent to commit adultery," even though that's not a crime under Afghan law. And the U.N. women's agency UNIFEM estimates that half of all girls are forced to marry under age 15, even though the legal marriage age is 16. "There's very good standards on paper. There's very active women's networks," said Georgette Gagnon, the U.N.'s human rights director in Afghanistan. "A lot has been done, but there is still a long way to go." A U.N. report in November also found that a 2009 law passed to protect Afghan women from violence was rarely enforced. For the 12-month period ending in March 2011, prosecutors filed indictments in 155 cases, only 7 percent of all 2,299 crimes reported. And activists say those complaints are a small fraction of the true level of abuse. Part of the problem is the ingrained attitudes of police and courts that cause them to turn a blind eye or even send women back to their abusers, said Latifa Sultani, coordinator for women's protection with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "Some local officials still believe women shouldn't have rights," Sultani said." - Anne Bouey

I can't comprehend this. - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart from Android

:( - Stephen Mack

I suppose 10 years ago this would have been both more commonplace and not news, so the sliver of a silver lining is that the outrage and condemnation is there both in Afghanistan and abroad. - Stephen Mack

It is the end result of religion as civil law-giver but it's also a result of an utterly misguided American Military and Foregn policy that makes routinely deals with the devil in service of America's interest with little thought to consequence. Welcome to our 10 year 9/11 jihad against an arab world - WarLord

This is such a sad story. Afghan girls and some of the Iranian girls as young as 9 years old are given to men to be raped. On top of that they have to endure other abuses. - سيما كيا Sima kia

"it's also a result of an utterly misguided American Military and Foregn policy that makes routinely deals with the devil in service of America's interest with little thought to consequence." I agree with WarLord. - سيما كيا Sima kia

There's plenty wrong with US foreign policy but the US didn't introduce misogyny into that region. It's been there for a very long time. http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html - Spidra Webster