Kabul: Afghan police were, Monday, hunting a
man who allegedly killed his wife after she gave birth to the
couple's third daughter, an official said.
Storay, 30, was beaten to death in the Khan Abad district
of the northern province Kunduz last Wednesday after she
delivered another baby girl, angering her husband who had
wanted a son, police said.
"She was beaten to death by her husband after she gave
birth to their third baby girl. We were informed of the case
by Storay's father," Sayed Sarwar Husaini, the provincial
police spokesman, said.
There were signs of torture on her body, he added.
"Police have arrested Storay's mother-in-law in
connection with the case, but her husband has fled. Police are
searching for him," Husaini said.
Violence and abuse against women continues to be a major
problem in Afghanistan, a decade after US-led troops brought
down the Taliban regime.
Last month, police found a teen bride who had been locked
in a toilet for six months at her husband's house in neighbouring Baghlan province.
She was burned and beaten, and had her fingernails pulled
out.
British charity Oxfam says 87 per cent of Afghan women
report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological
violence or forced marriage.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged
1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of
2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 30, 2012, 23:56