Friday, June 20, 2014

South Asian sex crime: Police are investigating yet another gang rape and hanging of a young woman, this time in Pakistan instead of India

Authorities in the Punjab province area of Layyah say that 20-year-old Muzammil Bibi was assaulted by three men in a field. Her parents found her body hanging from a tree the next morning, and, based on her injuries, police think that she fought back against her rapists. Three men have confessed, say police. The case bears a resemblance to the gang rape and hanging of two teen cousins in India in May 2014, which was followed by two similar attacks in that country. It also follows attacks in Pakistan in which a pregnant woman was stoned to death and another woman was shot and thrown in a canal. Family members are blamed in the latter two. Violence against women in the region is so prevalent that it barely registers as a crime, said one rights activist. "It is a mindset that has to change."

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