Teenager who was forced to marry the man who raped her has been badly injured after he attacked her with a razor. dailymail reports, The girl, known only as Khaoula, was attacked after she tried to divorce her husband and was left with 50 'disfiguring' cuts to her face and arms, according to reports. During the attack the girl's husband told her 'I swear that nobody will marry you after me', according to Moroccan news sites.
Until recently, Moroccan law allowed men to escape prosecution for rape if they agreed to marry their victim.A judge could recommend marriage rather than jail if the deal was agreed to by the victim and both families - who usually gave consent for fear of losing family honour. The law was repealed in January this year after a huge wave of protests following the death of Amina Filali, 16, who swallowed rat poison and killed herself after being forced to wed her attacker. Amina's father said at the time that the family were pressured into the marriage, with the judge telling them to 'go and make the marriage contract'. Despite Article 475 being repealed - as the law was known - violence against women remains common in the Islamic nation.
Campaigners say the new law relies on outdated definitions of rape and violence elsewhere in Moroccan statue, and are asking for the country's entire legal system to be reformed. For example, the severity of punishments can be decided on the basis of whether the victim was a virgin or not before the attack took place. A spokesman for Amnesty said: 'The definition of rape fails to recognise the reality that rape is committed in different ways including within coercive circumstances which do not necessarily require physical violence, with perpetrators and victims of all genders, and within marriage. 'This flawed, narrow definition still allows rapists to escape accountability.'
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