We have all been shocked and appauled by the 'teddy bear' incident this week, the British woman Gillian Gibbons, who was locked up in Sudan for allowing her pupils to name the class teddy bear Mohammed.
This story, although it ran every day in the news for over the past week, was no where near as severe as several stories of 'crime' and punishment in the Middle East which I also came accross in the news this week regarding women and ridiculous punishments.
I was reading about the case of an Iranian woman,Leila, now 22, who was regularly sold for sex by her parents from the age of nine to provide an income for her family. Later, when Leila married, her husband also sold her for money to up to 15 men a night.As horrific as that may sound, this is apparantly a not uncommon occurance in Iran, using women as commodities and sources of income, something which to us, in the western world is unimaginable.
What really shocked me was that Leila was sentenced to be hung for incest after her brothers confessed to raping her. What price did the brothers pay? they got a flogging. The husband who allowed his wife to be raped each night for money? he was sentenced to five years in jail.
Fortunately Leila was freed with the help of human rights activists, but we can only guess at the amount of women under the Iranian justice system who recieve the same treatment and are not helped in time.
Being punished for being raped? what kind of justice system is that?
Another case in Saudi Arabia in the news last week involved a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after being gang raped. The reason being that she was travelling alone in a car with a man to whom she was not related.Due to Saudi Arabia's strict gender laws, once again a woman is punished for being raped.
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