Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Child Bride
Kevin Sites Blog ^ | Kevin Sites

Posted on 03/20/2006 7:43:03 PM PST by Jeffery T.

Four year old child bride tortured unmercifully.....


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

1 posted on 03/20/2006 7:43:04 PM PST by Jeffery T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

Married at the age of four, an Afghan girl was subjected to years of beatings and torture, finally escaping to discover that within all the world's cruelty, there is also some kindness.



Religion of Peace my arse Mr. President!

These people are at best, animals.


2 posted on 03/20/2006 7:50:25 PM PST by trubluolyguy (Islam is a Cult of Death that has been infiltrated by a few non-violent believers.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

Good God in Heaven! That whole horrible family, the girl's mother & stepfather need to be taken out and spread eagle on an anthill.


3 posted on 03/20/2006 7:50:38 PM PST by lilylangtree
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

I do hope the devil's a-stoking his fires waiting to get ahold of people who would do such things to an innocent girl. Disgusting, abhorrent, and frankly evil. Makes me glad that there may be such a thing as Justice, if not in this world, hopefully in the next.


4 posted on 03/20/2006 7:56:06 PM PST by WanderingOisin (God save our Republic)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

My heart goes out to this little girl. How in the world anyone could live through that I dont know. I hope there was some justice for this child and the many others out there we dont know about. God help them all.


5 posted on 03/20/2006 8:00:55 PM PST by pandoraou812 (dilligaf barbaric with zero tolerance)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

Child Bride
Posted by Kevin Sites
on Mon, Mar 20 2006, 4:55 PM ET Video Audio Photo Essay

Married at the age of four, an Afghan girl was subjected to years of beatings and torture, finally escaping to discover that within all the world's cruelty, there is also some kindness.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn't find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already.


Enraged about the missing watch, Gulsoma's father-in-law had beaten her repeatedly with a stick. She was bleeding from wounds all over her body and her right arm and right foot had been broken.



She knew at that moment that if she didn't get away, he would make good on his promise to kill her.

* * *

When I meet her at the Ministry of Women's Affairs I'm surprised that the little girl, now 12, is the same one that had endured such horrible suffering. She is wearing a red baseball cap and an orange scarf. She has beautiful brown eyes and a full and animated smile. She takes one of my hands in both of hers and greets me warmly, without any hint of shyness.


"She looks healthy," says Haroon, my friend and translator. I nod. But she looks older than her years, we both agree. In orphanages — first in Kandahar, then in Kabul — she has had a year to recover from a lifetime's worth of unimaginable imprisonment, deprivation and torture.


In one of the ministry's offices she sits in a straight-backed wooden chair and tells us the story of her life so far. She is stoic for the most part, pausing only a few times to wipe her eyes and nose with her scarf.


Her story begins in the village of Mullah Allam Akhound, near Kandahar.


"When I was three years old my father died, and after a year my mother married again, but her second husband didn't want me," says Gulsoma. "So my mother gave me away in a promise of marriage to our neighbor's oldest son, who was thirty."


"They had a ceremony in which I was placed on a horse [which is traditional in Afghanistan] and given to the man."


Because she was still a child, the marriage was not expected to be sexually consummated. But within a year, Gulsoma learned that so much else would be required of her that she would become a virtual slave in the household.


At the age of five, she was forced to take care of not only her "husband" but also his parents and all 12 of their other children as well.

Though nearly the entire family participated in the abuse, her father-in-law, she says, was the cruelest.


"My father-in-law asked me to do everything — laundry, the household chores — and the only time I was able to sleep in the house was when they had guests over," she says. "Other than that I would have to sleep outside on a piece of carpet without even any blankets. In the summer it was okay. But in the winter a neighbor would come over and give me a blanket, and sometimes some food."


When she couldn't keep up with the workload, Gulsoma says, she was beaten constantly.



Gulsoma's scars


"They beat me with electric wires," she says, "mostly on the legs. My father-in-law told his other children to do it that way so the injuries would be hidden. He said to them, 'break her bones, but don't hit her on the face.'"


There were even times when the family's abuse of Gulsoma transcended the bounds of the most wanton, sadistic cruelty, as on the occasions when they used her as a human tabletop, forcing her to lie on her stomach then cutting their food on her bare back.


Gulsoma says the family had one boy her age, named Atiqullah, who refused to take part in her torture.


"He would sneak me food sometimes and when my mother-in-law told him to find a stick to beat me, he would come back say he couldn't find one," she says. "He would try to stop the others sometimes. He would say 'she is my sister, and this is sinful.' Sometimes I think about him and wish he could be here and I wish I could have him as my brother."

One evening, Gulsoma says, when her father-in-law saw the neighbor giving her food and a blanket, he took them away and beat her mercilessly. Then, she says, he locked her in a shed for two months.

"I would be kept there all day," she says, "then at night they would let me go the bathroom and I would be fed one time each day. Most of the time it was only bread and sometimes some beans."

She says every day she was locked in the shed, she wished and prayed that her parents would come and take her away. Then she would remember that her father was dead and her mother was gone.

But Gulsoma had an inner strength even her father-in-law couldn't comprehend.

"When he came to the shed he kept asking me, 'Why don't you die? I imprisoned you, I give you less food, but still you don't die.'"

But it wasn't for lack of trying. Gulsoma said when her father-in-law finally let her out of the shed, he bound her hands behind her back and beat her unconscious. She says he revived her by pouring a tea thermos filling with scalding water over her head and her back.

"It was so painful," she says, dabbing her eyes with her scarf and sniffling for a moment. "I was crying and screaming the entire time."

Five days later, she says, her father in law gave her a vicious beating when his daughter's wristwatch went missing.

"He thought I stole it," she says, "and he beat me all over my body with his stick. He broke my arm and my foot. He said if I didn't find it by the next day, he would kill me."

* * *



Gulsoma found hope after escaping

She crawled away that night and hid under a rickshaw. When the rickshaw driver found Gulsoma, broken and bleeding, he listened to her story and took her to the police. She was hospitalized immediately.

"The doctor at the hospital who treated me said, 'I wish I could take you to the village square and show all the people what happened to you, so no one would ever do something like this again,'" Gulsoma says.

It took her a full month to recover from her last beating. But the fear and psychological trauma may never go away.

"I was happy to have a bed and food at the hospital," she says. "But I was thinking that when I get better they will give me back to the family."

However, Gulsoma says when the police questioned the family, the father-in-law lied and tried to tell them she had epilepsy and had fallen down and hurt herself. But the neighbor who had helped Gulsoma confirmed the story of her beatings and torture.

The police arrested her father-in-law and "husband." They told her, she says, they would keep them in jail unless she asked for their release.

"Everyone was crying when they heard my story," Gulsoma says.

Gulsoma says she stayed at an orphanage in Kandahar, but was the only girl in the facility. Eventually, her story was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Women's Affairs.



The toll of torture

Gulsoma was then brought to a Kabul orphanage, where she lives today. She takes off her baseball cap and shows us a bald spot, almost like a medieval monk's tonsure, on the crown of her head where she was scalded.

She then turns her back and raises her shirt to reveal a sad map of scar tissue and keloids from cuts, bruises and the boiling water.

Haroon and I look at each other with disbelief. Her life's tragic story is etched upon her back.

Yet she continues to smile. She doesn't ask for pity. She seems more concerned about us as she reads the shock on our faces.

"I feel better now," she says. "I have friends at the orphanage. But every night I'm still afraid the family will come here and pick me up."

Gulsoma also says that when the sun goes down, she sometimes begins to shiver involuntarily — a reaction to the seven years of sleeping outdoors, sometimes in the bitter cold of the desert night.

She says she believes there are other girls like her in Kandahar, maybe elsewhere in Afghanistan, and that she wants to study human rights and one day go back to help them.

As we walk outside to take some pictures, I ask her if, after all she's been through, she thinks it will be harder to trust, to believe that there are actually good people in the world.

"No," she says, quickly.

"I didn't expect anyone would help me but God. I was really surprised that there were also nice people: the neighbor, the rickshaw driver, the police," she says. "I pray for those who helped release me."

Looking directly into the camera, she smiles as if nothing bad had ever happened to her in her entire life.

"I think that all people are good people," she says, "except for those that hurt me."

SEND YOUR SUPPORT

The Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone team has set up an email account so that messages of support can be retrieved and forwarded to Gulsoma via a local organization. Click here to email your message.


6 posted on 03/20/2006 8:05:31 PM PST by elfman2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

Oh Dear Lord...


7 posted on 03/20/2006 8:22:30 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

I hope some kind and loving family takes her in. She is an amazing young girl.

Her father-in-law was an unbelievable sadist. May he get the punishment he deserves -- if not in this life, then the next.


8 posted on 03/20/2006 9:02:19 PM PST by KittyKares
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.; Cindy; Calpernia; StillProud2BeFree; nw_arizona_granny

Hard to type through the tears.

May God Bless this child.

My family will be sending e-mails of support.


9 posted on 03/21/2006 6:28:29 AM PST by Velveeta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Velveeta

Although it probably wont happen, this girl should be the conservatives "cause celebre". We should send support until it hurts. We should invite her to this country and treat her to a good time ie. DisneyWorld. We should try to put some muscle into this cause and try to give back to this girl what some sadistic SOB tried to take away.


10 posted on 03/21/2006 6:39:11 AM PST by Jeffery T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

I agree with you.

Her sweet angel face keeps flashing before me.

Bless her heart.


11 posted on 03/21/2006 7:07:52 AM PST by Velveeta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Velveeta
A watch. A damn watch. %4@#$@#$%


12 posted on 03/21/2006 7:16:38 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Calpernia

"Married" at the age of 4.

I think back to my girls at that age with their ballet tutus and dolls.


13 posted on 03/21/2006 7:21:14 AM PST by Velveeta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: elfman2

How dare president Bush send our military into such a country? Surely it has the right to beat, torture and kill young girls?


14 posted on 03/21/2006 7:26:03 AM PST by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Velveeta

Sometimes I am not too happy about waking up to my surroundings. Pre 9/11, I was stereotypical soccer mom.

Now I get my news from the Net vs. 20 minute headline blurbs and I see pictures of babies in bomb belts and read stories about child brides....

I don't always know if knowing more is worth it.


15 posted on 03/21/2006 7:32:57 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Calpernia

>>>I don't always know if knowing more is worth it.

I know what you mean, as sleep is hard to come by.


16 posted on 03/21/2006 7:53:33 AM PST by Velveeta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Velveeta

Go to the Kevin Sites website and send words of encouragement to this little girl.....PLEASE. Also, does anyone know the steps necessary for a church group to go to Afghanistan and have this girl come to America for professional treatment? I'm sure the State Dept. has to get involved. I'm not a church member, but I'm sure I can work with a church organization to bring this girl here.


17 posted on 03/21/2006 9:03:38 AM PST by Jeffery T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: WanderingOisin
I do hope the devil's a-stoking his fires waiting to get ahold of people who would do such things to an innocent girl.

Are you kidding?

"The devil" is the entity responsible for unleashing these animals on Earth in the first place. They do his bidding.

18 posted on 03/21/2006 9:05:07 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Crime cannot be tolerated. Criminals thrive on the indulgences of society's understanding.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Jeffery T.

Viewing the pictures was almost unbearable. Those who did this and the demonic cult (it is not a religion) that supports it are not human, they are subhuman barbarians.


19 posted on 03/21/2006 9:13:22 AM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; Antoninus; Aquinasfan; BIRDS; BlackElk; BlessedBeGod; ...
MORAL ABSOLUTES PING.

DISCUSSION ABOUT:

"Judge: No credible evidence underage sex always harmful"

WARNING: This is VERY upsetting.

To be included in or removed from the MORAL ABSOLUTES PINGLIST, please FreepMail wagglebee.

20 posted on 03/21/2006 9:17:27 AM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson