Pakistani Girl Set on Fire for Refusing Marriage Proposal

Every year more than 1, 000 girls are honor killed in Pakistan and more than 1,000 girls from religious minorities are kidnapped and forcibly converted.

A young school teacher in Islamabad was lynched and set afire in an honor killing by a mob of men, angry that she had refused the marriage proposal of one of them.

Maria Sadaquat, 19, succumbed to her wounds and burns, which covered 80 percent of her body shortly after being taken to a hospital.

Sadaquat was teacher in the Sufa Academy, which was owned by an influential man named Shaukat Hussain. She fell in love with Hussain’s son Haroon, who proposed to marry her despite the fact that he was already married and the father of a daughter.

Although aware that polygamy is allowed in Islam, Sadaquat did not want to be part of such an arrangement and refused Haroon’s offer. After his father Hussain pressured her to marry his son (and later threatened her), Sadaquat left her job at the school.

While alone in her house, an angry mob of men of various ages stormed into the house shouting at the young woman before dragging her out and dousing her with kerosene.  A match was lit and the mob ran, leaving Sadaquat to burn alive.

Before she died, Sadaquat was able to provide a video statement of the attack as well as a pervious attack where, a few days earlier, five men broke into her house, dragged her to an open area and kicked her as if she were a “football.”

Farzana Bari, a human rights activist urged the government to take serious action against all who were involved in the lynching. Every year more than 1, 000 girls are honor killed in Pakistan.

In addition, more than 1,000 girls from religious minorities are kidnapped and forcibly converted.

Locals report that such incidences are not seriously investigated. Committees of enquires are announced, but reports are never published and action is rarely taken against culprits.

In April, in Abbottabad, the Pakistani city notoriously known for hiding Osama Bin Laden, an 18-year old girl was burned alive in a vehicle on the orders of the local jirga (assembly of leaders).

Source: Pakistani Girl Set on Fire for Refusing Marriage Proposal