LARACHE, Morocco, March 17 (UPI) -- A 16-year-old Moroccan girl forced to marry her rapist has committed suicide, and activists are protesting laws allowing rapists to marry their victims.
The BBC reported Amina Filali, of Larache, near Tangiers, swallowed rat poison after being severely beaten during the forced marriage to her rapist in the country, where rapists can marry their victims to avoid jail.
After her suicide, Moroccan activists increased pressure to eliminate laws allowing rapists to marry their victims. Opponents of the laws have begun an online petition and planned protests Saturday. They have also begun a Facebook page, "We are all Amina Filali."
Allowing rapists to marry their victims "is an embarrassment to Morocco's international image of modernity and democracy," Fouzia Assouli, president of the Democratic League for Women's Rights, told the BBC.
"In Morocco, the law protects public morality but not the individual," she said.
In conservative parts of Morocco, the BBC said, it is viewed as unacceptable for a woman to lose her virginity before marriage and is considered a dishonor for her and her family even if she is raped.
Assouli said legislation outlawing all forms of violence against women, including rape within marriage, has been upheld since 2006.
Activists are also calling for the jailing of Filali's rapist and the judge who allowed him to marry her.
The girl's father said after he reported her rape, he was told of her option to marry the rapist.
When the girl complained about mistreatment by the man, the family "disowned her," the BBC said, prompting her to commit suicide.
