Moroccan Teen Forced To Marry Rapist Did Not Commit Suicide, Was Forced To Drink Poison

Last month Moroccan rights activists were outraged after it was discovered that 16-year-old Amina al-Filali (aka Aminah al Fillaly) committed suicide by drinking rat poison as a result of being forced to marry her rapist.  In Morocco (and other Islamic countries), rapists can choose to marry their victims to avoid prosecution and jail time. This is what the rapist chose to do, and the family was forced to comply.

But now the mother has come forward claiming it wasn't a suicide but murder.

Emirates 24/7 reports the teen's mother said “My daughter told me just before her death that someone made her drink the rat poison." She did not name the person who forced the poison on her daughter, but went on to say “My daughter suffered greatly during her marriage with that man….he had not lived with her as a husband nor had he carried out his duty for her…..her husband had always mistreated her."


Hassan Al Fillaly, Aminah's father, said he objected to his daughter’s marriage to the man who raped her at knife-point, but that he bowed to tribal pressure which puts pressure on a family's honor to be preserved. Under Moroccan law the rapist was granted immunity from prosecution by marrying his victim.

Following Aminah's death there were calls for a change in the law. According to al-Akhbar, Morocco's Democratic League for Women's Rights organized a demonstration calling for a reform of the criminal code. Additionally Bassima Hakkaoui, Minister for Women and Families in Morocco's Islamic parliament, called for a debate to reform the law which protected the rapist at the expense of the raped child.

Whether the young girl committed suicide or was actually murdered by being forced to drink rat poison, she was the victim of a draconian religious law that re-victimizes women and allows men to get off  scot-free.

Will those laws change?  Probably not, at least until Islam somehow evolves and modernizes, which is doubtful.