Hope for this girl, and the others that are in shelter

but their treatment sickens me, and it's a culture-wide problem that needs to be addressed. Sold to her husband, essentially, prior to the age of consent for marriage, she was forced to work for the family, drugged and used when she refused to have sex with her husband, and beaten and tortured by the family.

Wed and Tortured at 13, Afghan Girl Finds Rare Justice

Frustrated that the girl could not perform the housework they expected, the family put her in the cellar, where she slept on the floor without a mattress, her hands and feet tied with rope. She was given only bread and water to eat. She was also beaten regularly. According to Sahar Gul and Ms. Daqiq, most of the beatings were at the hand of Amanullah, Ghulam Sakhi’s elderly father.

They described grotesque crimes, accusing Amanullah of hitting Sahar Gul with sticks, biting her chest, inserting hot irons in her ears and vagina, and pulling out two fingernails.

“She was helpless,” Ms. Daqiq said. “She had no hope for her life.”

Her husband and his brother are still at large. Her in-laws are in prison for the crimes, under a little-applied law that prohibits violence against women.

This bring up a whole slew of issues

regarding religious, reproductive, and health care rights.

Judge Forces Hysterectomy on God-Loving Woman

A cancer patient in Montana -- identified only as L.K. -- refused to undergo a hysterectomy as treatment for her cancer on the grounds that she is deeply religious and wants to have children. That's sad enough in it's own right. But no one could have foreseen what happened next: A judge found her "mentally incompetent" based on her "delusional religious beliefs" and ruled she was to have the procedure.

State Supreme Court halts surgery to allow appeal in hysterectomy ruling

“Normally, we don’t force treatment on adults. Competent adults can refuse even lifesaving treatments on religious terms,” he said. “The challenge is to establish that they truly are incompetent and that they really do comprehend the risk posed to their life.”

Then there are degrees, so to speak, of religion, said John Stone of Creighton University’s Center for Health Policy and Ethics. People with well-established religious objections to medical treatments — say Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions, even lifesaving ones – generally see those requests honored, he said.

I realise that in making this ruling, the judge is presumably trying to save this woman's life. The woman has stated that she believes God has cured her, but that she understands that doctors say she will die within three years without a hysterectomy (although she did reserve the right to change her mind later, it may be too late for her.)

But...

In this country, competent adults are afforded the right to refuse such treatment, including based on religious grounds. The courts usually get involved with cases like this when a child is involved.

So, does a belief that God can cure her make her delusional, and incompetent to make such a life-threatening decision for herself? Tell me, is it delusional to believe that bread and wine become flesh and blood? Is it delusional to believe a man spoke to God through a burning bush? Or that Mohammad ascended to heaven? My point is, religion often involves things that don't logically make sense. If all of those are delusional, then does that mean that many Christians, Jews, and Muslims have no right to determine their own health care?

On another front...we get to reproductive rights and mental competence.

Thing is, we used to sterilise the mentally incompetent and developmentally disabled in this country, and that practice is now condemned as unethical. While this woman's sterilisation would be a by-product of a life-saving procedure, it's still sterilisation, and it's the main reason she's balking. She wants children badly enough to risk her life. Is that delusional? Maybe, but I've known at least one woman that desperate who has, indeed, risked her life to have a baby. Most people consider her sane. In the end, shouldn't it be the woman's right to be sterile and alive, or fecund and in peril?

The rights of women seem to be among the first to fall in Chechnya

Chechen leader imposes strict brand of Islam: Critics fear dictatorship in region where Russian laws will not apply

Ramzan Kadyrov insists seven young women shot in the head and found alongside a road were the victims of Islamic honour killings for having loose morals, even though the facts and quite a bit of public opinion do not agree. It's just one aspect of a move towards a stricter form of Islam that has some worried about the loss of separation of church and state that Russian law ensures.

There is a Jewish prayer where a man thanks G-d for not being born a woman. I thank the Gods I was not born a woman under Islam. I don't have trouble with Islam itself--but the strict forms are hell on women's rights. Lots of religions have problems in terms of how they treat women--how they should dress, how they should behave, etc. I fortuantely don't have that problem in my own religion, which is actually rather female-centric, but all it would take is a change in religious freedom and that could go out the window. Also, the rights I enjoy as a US citizen are not portable through the world, and that's certain true in many Muslim areas, among others. It seems to me that most Fundamentalist faiths seem to share the desire to control women, and any faith focussed on controlling half of the population in favour of the other half is just wrong, no matter what faith it is--Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or non-Biblical religions that relegate women to traditional roles and ideals.

And whilst headscarves can be pretty, and it's certainly any woman's right to wear them should she choose--it shouldn't be imposed on women on pain of punishment. It often seems to start with headscarves, doesn't it? Then it's a birka, or who you can talk to, and what you can talk about. Then it spins downward from that. Other religions have their own versions of headscarves, too, so I'm not just picking on Islam.

Although I sometimes complain about America

I fortunately have that right, as part of my right to free speech. And it's stories like these that really make me appreciate my rights as an American citizen. I wish others fared as well.

Afghan gets 20 years for women's rights talk

An Afghan appeals court overturned a death sentence for a student accused of blasphemy for asking questions about women's rights under Islam. But the judges still sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Star-crossed lovers

Forced Annulment Keeps Couple Apart

Fatima and Mansour al-Timani were married with her father's blessing, even though his clan did not have as much prestige as hers. But her relatives convinced her father to give them power of attorney, and after he died they filed to annul the marriage. The police came and informed them of a divorce in abstentia granted by a judge. According to Saudi law, they cannot live together. In fact, when they did reunite they were found by the police. Fatima was given the choice to return to her mother or go to jail. She chose jail. She was imprisoned along with her two children. Eventually her daughter was allowed to return to her father. The boy, who was an infant, remained with her. She is now out of jail. Her husband has been taking the case through the system. An appeals court upheld the original annulment, but studies of Islamic law showed that since her legal guardian gave permission and attended the wedding, the other relatives should not have any right to request an annulment. A request has been made for the case to go before the highest court in the land. Also, Fatima holds out hope that the king of Saudi Arabia could pardon her and recognise the marriage. If not, she is prepared to commit suicide rather than be separated from Mansour.

I hope they are able to be together again. I know it's a different culture, but it seems to me that if her father gave permission--which is required for a woman to marry--then the legalities were observed and her relatives shouldn't be able to change things, especially after they have had children together.

At least the relatives didn't kill her like that awful story of the Indian family where the father killed his pregnant daughter, son-in-law, and grandson because she'd married without his permission to someone of a lower caste.