Marry Thy Rapist

A Moroccan law, and likely societal pressure, was recently used to force Amina Filali, a 16 year-old girl, to marry her rapist. The LA Times is reporting that on Saturday Amina swallowed rat poison and died to escape her situation:

The suicide of a Moroccan teenager who reportedly had been forced to marry her rapist has spurred calls from around the world to change criminal laws long lamented by Moroccan feminists.

Human rights groups complain that Moroccan law has been interpreted to allow someone who rapes a minor to escape punishment if he marries the victim. Moroccan media reported that was what happened to Amina Filali, a 16-year-old who reportedly swallowed rat poison Saturday.

[…]

The Moroccan government has argued that the law applies only if the victim agrees to marry, but activists say young women can be pressured into marriage to protect family honor. Her father told a Moroccan news website that the courts had pushed the idea, the Associated Press reported.

Read the full story.

The idea behind allowing rapists to avoid legal prosecution by marrying their victims is a disgusting example of a women being treated as property, a woman’s worth being measured by her purity, and a warped societal agreement of what constitutes “honor”. The law and society is telling the rapist, “You break it, you buy it.”

Marry Thy Rapist
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