The martyrdom of legitimacy

Protests in Morocco over ‘rapists’ licence’

METRO, 19 March 2012

for Amina Filali

More than her honour was taken

at the point of a dagger,

yet by what passes in Morocco

for justice this innocent maiden,

by the name of Amina,

found herself indentured to wed him

who had raped her, the bloodstained bed in

which she was martyred

to become her God-sanctioned prison.

Is it to the western mind more shocking

that her own mother, Zohra,

was the person most loudly exhorting

her daughter, a child of sixteen,

to accept this bazaar

imposition simply to keep folk in

their village from idly gossiping?

But Moroccan law

lets the vilest predator go walking

free as due reward for a token

proposal, and, insha’Allah,

many an angel must choose between Satan

        and, like Amina, the liberation of rat poison.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Note

In Morocco, a rapist who is prepared to wed his victim may go free if her family accepts his offer. Meanwhile, the anonymity of the rapist, but not that of the victim, is protected by the state. Amina’s unnamed attacker will now go unpunished.