Afghan blogger Kamran Soltani has reacted to the killing of Ruqia, a 17-year-old girl who was reportedly killed by her family after refusing a forced marriage, saying: “Ruqia was not the first, and she will not be the last.”
Soltani said in a post accompanying a photo of Ruqia that the value placed on girls in Afghanistan is far lower than it should be. He also claimed that when a girl is raped in Afghanistan, she may remain silent because she is either ignored or blamed for what happened to her.
He added that girls who refuse to marry may also face violence from their own parents, including the risk of being killed.
According to Soltani, a family can be a child’s first and last place of refuge, but he said that in Afghanistan, the situation has often been the opposite.
