Women locked up for moral crimes

KABUL (AP):

Lost and alone in a strange city, Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She worried he wouldn't help her because she had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeing to the capital Kabul to escape his relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. But he promised to help. Too busy to come himself, he sent a friend who took her to "some house", held a gun to her head and raped her.

Finished with her, he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun, shot her assailant in the head, and turned the gun on herself.

"Three days later, I woke up in the hospital," she said, slowly, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long, jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.

From the hospital, Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months, Mariam has been waiting to find out why she is in jail, the charges and when she can leave.

"I haven't gone to court. I am just waiting."

Hugging a ratty brown sweater to protect her from the damp cold of the prison, Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six-year-old jail. The majority of the women are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parent's home with a man of their choice, all so-called 'moral' crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi.