Again, The Religion of Peace

from Telegraph.co.uk

By Ben Farmer in Kabul
Last Updated: 8:49PM GMT 08 Jan 2009

The girl is critically ill in hospital after her family sewn the girl up themselves and said she had been bitten by a dog to cover their crime.

A man accused of raping the girl, from the central Afghan province of Bamiyan, is under arrest.

The rural family apparently decided to perform an abortion when the girl was five months pregnant to protect the family's honour.

Rape victims face extreme social stigma, imprisonment and abandonment or murder by their own families in Afghanistan.

Dr Ghulam Mohammad Nader, head of Bamiyan hospital, told the BBC that the girl had been able to explain what had happened but was in a critical condition with infected wounds. She is now being treated in the capital Kabul.

"The girl stayed at home for three or four days in her condition until her father took her to hospital," he said.

"He said a dog had bitten her so that people in the area wouldn't know what had really happened."

Habiba Sarabi, governor of the province, said the girl had been bound and taken to a stables for the abortion. Police are now trying to arrest her family.