APSN | Sisters attacked with acid after proposal is spurned

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Sisters attacked with acid after proposal is spurned

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Laura King, Kabul – An Afghan teenage girl, together with two younger sisters, was the victim of an acid-throwing attack three days after her family declined a marriage proposal from an older man, according to authorities in Kunduz province north of Kabul.

All three sisters, including the eldest, a 17-year-old whose hand in marriage had been sought, and the youngest, who was nine, were hospitalised after the attack by three assailants who burst into their home late on Tuesday night. The third sister was 12 years old.

Family members identified one of the three attackers as the spurned groom, officials said. All three sisters suffered serious acid burns, doctors said.

"I visited them in the hospital myself – their faces were all covered in bandages," Hamdullah Danishi, the acting governor of Kunduz, said. He said an investigation was under way.

Women's rights groups expressed outrage over the attack. "We want the government to punish criminals like this," Nadera Geya, the head of the provincial women's rights commission, said.

Acid attacks against women and girls are not uncommon in Afghanistan. However, many do not come to light, especially if they are the result of a private clan dispute.

In a notorious case three years ago, a dozen schoolgirls in the southern city of Kandahar were splashed with acid by motorcycle-borne assailants who later said they were paid to carry out the attack by Taliban opposed to girls' education.

Arranged marriages are the norm in much of Afghanistan, and a woman generally cannot go against her family's wishes, except by running away – an offence that can result in a lengthy jail sentence.

But the young woman in Kunduz had the backing of her family, relatives said, because she was already engaged to someone else.

The Taliban, and the Pashtun ethnic group from which the movement is largely drawn, often take the harshest line against women who do not submit to forced marriages, but cultural norms are as unforgiving among other ethnic groups.

Sometimes girls and women are claimed by warlord-like figures in their communities; other times they are handed over to settle a clan dispute.

In the Kunduz case, the rejected groom was described as a mujahedeen, or a former anti-Taliban fighter.