for abuse. Two women with their heads covered hurry past DeMarre Carroll Jersey , stopping briefly to warn a young Pakistani woman, ""Don't bring your children to that madrassa. It is very bad what they do to the children there.""
A sign for the madrassa is emblazoned with the flag of a Taliban-affiliated group. After persistent knocking, a blind maulvi, Mohammed Nadeem, led by a young student, agrees to speak. He denies that any abuse takes place inside the madrassa.
___
""BLOOD MONEY""
Victims and their families can choose to ""forgive"" an assailant because Pakistan's legal system is a mix of British Common Law and Islamic Shariah law.
A similar legal provision was changed last year to prevent forgiveness of ""honor"" killings, where victims are murdered because they are thought to have brought shame on their families. Honor killings now carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison, but clerics in sexual abuse cases can still be forgiven.
Sahil, the organization that scours newspapers for cases of sexual assault, offers families legal aid to pursue such cases. Last year, Sahil found 56 cases of sexual assault involving religious clerics. None of the families accepted Sahil's offer of legal assistance.
In cases that are pursued, convictions do occasionally happen.
In south Punjab, a cleric was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor girl in 2016 and sentenced to 12 years in prison and the equivalent of a $1,500 fine. The same cleric had in the past managed to get several families to settle over sexual abuse cases because of his close links to religious extremist groups, said local officials. This time, a local activist group known as Roshan Pakistan, or Bright Pakistan, persuaded the family of the young girl to resist.
Far more often, the family gives in, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl who was raped by the maulvi of the unregistered madrassa she attended, according to a police report.
Her uncle, Mohammed Azam, points across a field to the madrassa, surrounded by a high wall. The girl started working two years ago, at 7, and her only schooling was in the Quran. She spent the rest of the day sitting cross-legged on a mud floor inside a swelteringly hot room sewing the traditional shalwar kameez.
Last July, a cleric ""forcibly took her shalwar off and started molesting her,"" according to the police report obtained by the AP. She screamed. Two men heard her screams and stormed into the room, and found the cleric attacking her. Seeing them, the cleric fled, and the men took the bleeding girl home, the report said.
""We would hear that these kinds of things happen, children raped in the madrassas, but you never know until it happens to your family,"" says Azam, her uncle.
Yet the family settled the case out of court. He refused to say how much money they got, but neighbors say it was around $800.
""The family took money to not speak about it,"" says Rana Mohammed Jamal, an elderly neighbor. He says he believes abuses occurred predominantly in the small madrassas that spring up in poor neighborhoods, ""where it is just the mullah and no one can say who he is, and he can do anything.""
Parveen, the mother of the 9-year-old boy who says he was raped by his teacher in Kehrore Pakka, vowed that she would never give in to intimidation. But relatives and neighbors say the family was hounded by religious militants to drop the charges and take money.
In the end, the mother ""forgave"" the cleric and accepted $300, according to police.
The cleric was set free.
Agencies
" " People watch vehicles burning after an accident, on the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo federal highway, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, Dec. 30, 2017. Three vehicles crashed into each other and burst into flames on a highway in south Mexico's Guerrero state, killing 10 people, including five members of a vacationing family visiting from the U.S., officials reported on Saturday.(XinhuaStr)
MEXICO CITY, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Three vehicles crashed into each other and burst into flames on a highway in south Mexico's Guerrero state, killing 10 people, including five members of a vacationing family visiting from the U.S., officials reported on Saturday.
The accident, involving two SUVs and a motorcycle, took place shortly before midnight Friday, on the highway linking the beach resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, the state's Secretary of Civil protection said.
The five tourists and the driver of their van and his assistant were also killed in the crash. Two boys, aged 18 and 8, who were traveling with the family, survived the accident and were taken to a nearby hospital.
According to the national daily Excelsior, the family was headed to the town of Atoyac de Alvarez, and were merely 15 minutes from arriving at their destination when the accident occurred.
The remaining victims included the 76-year-old driver of the second SUV and two men who were on the motorcycle. All three were from the town of Tecpan de Galeana, where the accident took place.
Officials are investigating the cause of the accident.
"
ISLAMABAD， Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said here Thursday that India intends to "further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security，" citing the Indian forces used artillery on Wednesday in its cross Line of Control (LoC) shelling.
According to a statement by the ministry， the foreign secretary "deplored the use of artillery" by the Indian forces in Shahkot and Jura sectors on the LoC on Nov. 9 and highlighted that such weaponry had been used after 13 years， reflecting "India's intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security."
Meanwhile， the foreign secretary called on the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to maintain pea. Cheap Jerseys Cheap Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Cheap Wholesale Authentic Jerseys Wholesale Shirts China Cheap T-shirts China Cheap Hoddies China Cheap College Hats Cheap Soccer Hoddies Cheap Adidas NHL Hats