Nice

Afghan suicide vest girl ‘treated like a slave’
by family who tried to make her blow up
police checkpoint The girl, believed to be around 10 years
old, said she would rather kill herself than
be sent back home Spozhmai, 10, who was about to be used by the
Taliban as a suicide bomber, talks as she sits at a
police office in Helmand province on 6 January
..... A young girl in Afghanistan who was found
wearing a suicide vest has spoken about how her
family “treated her like a slave” and tried to force
her to blow up a police checkpoint. The girl, who is known only as Spozhmai, told
police when she was found last week that her
brother Zahir was a prominent Taliban
commander. Today she said he had beaten her
and forced her to put on the explosive-filled vest. Thought to be around 10 years old, police say
Spozhmai was spotted wearing the vest last
Monday by an Afghan soldier, and taken into
protective custody in the provincial capital
Lashkar Gah. Her father Abdul has told reporters he wants her
to move with him to another part of Afghanistan
to get away from the Taliban – but she says he
was aware of the plan from the start. “They were all in it together,” she told the BBC’s
Newsday programme. “It was my dad first, and
then it was passed down to my brothers.” She added that her father had ordered her to
return home, but she refused to obey, telling
him: “No, I will kill myself rather than go with
you.” Spozhmai said she was “treated as if I was a
slave” by her family, and not allowed to read and
write. She said: “I did all the things at home, I
cooked, I cleaned the whole house. My brother
told me you are here in this world and you will
die, you are not here to learn or do other things.” She has appealed to the Afghan President Hamid
Karzai to put her into a new home, and a
spokesperson for his office said she would only
be sent back to her family if tribal elders could
guarantee her safety. “I won't go back there,” she said in her appeal.
“God didn't make me to become a suicide
bomber. I ask the president to put me in a good
place.” Spozhmai told the BBC that if she is sent back
“the same thing will happen again”. “They have
told me before: ‘If you don't do it this time, we
will make you do it again.’” President Karzai has condemned the Taliban
over the alleged plot – yet they deny having any
involvement. Qari Yousef Ahamdi, a spokesman for the group,
dismissed the story as “government propaganda”
and said: “We never do this, especially with
girls.”