Of course, from half-a-globe away, it's impossible to corroborate the details, but nothing in this story is too far off the well-worn reservation.
An Iranian woman arrested at the age of 13 is due to be hanged after spending 18 years in jail. Soghra Molaii Najafpour was sent to work as a maid in the northern city of Rasht, on the Caspian Sea, when she was nine years-old and accused of the murder of her employer's eight-year-old son, Amir.
She claimed responsibility for the murder of Amir in court , reportedly under pressure, and told the judge how she killed the boy. However, her confession was contradicted by other evidence that raised doubts about her confession. She later said she had not killed Amir, but she was sentenced to be executed.
When Soghra was 17 years old, she was transferred to solitary confinement, where she was kept until she would be executed before dawn of the following day. Soghra escaped execution after Amir’s mother could not bring herself to witness Soghra’s execution, and had requested that the execution be postponed until a later time.
Children sent to be maids to send home money to family--typical. Rough-housing with child the same size ending in death? Possible I suppose. Confession after "pressure" [read: torture] very common. Retraction after wounds subside, to be expected. Mother of dead child recoils at having to watch another child die: plausible.
Now, what are the missing details?
[A]ccording to the site SaveDelara.com, when Soghra was a maid in Rasht, she was subjected to sexual abuse and was repeatedly raped by Amir’s father. The site claims that on the day of the incident, Amir’s father had once again attacked Soghra and was raping the 13 year-old when Amir walked in and witnessed the crime.
In an attempt to get rid of him, Amir’s father pushed the young boy away, and that is how young Amir hit his head to the wall, fell to the ground, and lost consciousness. Soghra’s employer then allegedly forced her to dispose the boy’s body in a well because he could not bring himself to do so.
Now we're reduced to a "he said; she said," since each accuses the other of the crime. Without witnesses, we have convention, which says that maids are expected to provide sexual favours for men in the house. Thus, her accusation isn't too far fetched, although a decent inquiry at the time could have easily discerned if she were still a virgin. If she were not, there wouldn't be far to look to figure out who was responsible. Sadly, she was a child in a country where her rights didn't measure up to those of the men around her, and it's entirely possible that the father is guilty of both child rape and murder.
Finally, I find this interesting:
Iran has ratified international treaties including the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for underage youth who commit crimes. In Iran young men are considered to be adults from the age of 14 and young women from the age of eight and a half, and therefore responsible for any crimes that they commit.
So despite the fact that a woman's word is worth only half a man's, her accountability as an adult begins so much sooner. It would be wicked of me, I know, to suggest that making her an adult allows men to hide behind her young age as being capable of "consent" to conjugal relations, now, wouldn't it? Another dodge for a perverse tradition.
Let us pray for Soghra. Eighteen years in jail--much in solitary confinement-- is much to bear.
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.