Moroccan teen forced to marry rapist, did not commit suicide

The mother of Moroccan teenager Aminah Al Fillaly, who reportedly committed suicide after being forced to marry the man who raped her, has revealed her daughter did not kill herself. Instead she was forced to drink poison.

The death of 16-year-old Aminah Al Fillaly was met with outrage when it was reported the desperate teen had taken her own life following her forced marriage to the man who raped her. The IB Times reported Aminah ingested rat poison at her home in Larache. However, her mother has now spoken out denying the reports of her daughter's suicide. Emirates 247 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.