Officials in Herat province – the west of Afghanistan have confirmed that a two-year-old girl died after being raped by a 22-year-old man. Herat police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi stated that the girl was raped yesterday 1st of June.
Mr. Ahmadi added that the 22 year old has been detained with the help of the people. The villagers found her body a few hours after she went missing. The chief of district Mr. Esmatollah Danishyar also confirmed that the man who committed the crime has been living in the neighborhood.
Since the autumn of last year the reports of sexual assault towards children in Herat and other provinces in Afghanistan only made authorities to view it as a social problems.
Civil and human rights organizations called for Afghanistan government to take sexual assault against children seriously, and many media and social networks launched campaigns, asking for justice for victims of sexual assault.
In November last year in Herat, a man convicted of sexually assaulting his teenage daughter was sentenced to death by a court and a teenage boy died after sexual assault by two men.
At the same time, several other similar reports surfaced in the media and concern for the safety of children intensified.
Last March, Human Rights Watch criticised the Afghan Judicial institution in the handling of the rape victims and asked the government to prosecute the perpetrators rather than the victims.
In a report, Human Rights Watch wrote that instead of investigating the cases of sexual abuse against children, Afghan judicial institutions will send the children to training and reform centers.
According to Human Rights Watch, children who have been the victims of sexual abuse and have been sent to the training and reform centers are once again the victims.
Source: BBC Farsi
