Teen 'raped by police' as she reported earlier sex attack

An Afghan teenager who went to police to report being raped claims she was then raped again by the district police chief in his office.

The 18-year-old, who gave her name as Mariam, was taken at gunpoint from her house in the Zareh district of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan in early July.

She said was brought to a house on the same street where he and another man raped her.

Mariam said: "When I went with my father to report the rape case, the police commissioner ordered my father to wait outside, and took me into his office where he also raped me.”

He then warned her to "keep her mouth shut" or she would be killed, Mariam said by phone from Kabul where she is staying with her father.

A shortage of female police officers in Afghanistan means women rarely report abuse, rights groups say.

More than eight in 10 women in Afghanistan have been sexually, physically or psychologically abused, but only a few thousand cases are reported each year, research suggests.

For cultural and social reasons it is very difficult for an Afghan woman to approach a male officer, Oxfam has said.

When they do, their complaints are rarely handled properly.

In some cases the police assault or even rape women who come for help, Oxfam added.

Police commissioner Akram Zareh denied any wrongdoing in this case.

He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone: "I am an honest policeman. I am 60.

“She is like my daughter. This is a plot against me."

Mariam's father Khairuddin brought his daughter to the capital Kabul to draw attention to her story and seek justice.

He said: "My daughter said that she would burn herself alive, because she could not go out of the house and could not make eye contact with anyone due to shame.”

He said he met Afghanistan's attorney general who promised to investigate the case.

Zareh is still serving as the district police commissioner and was already being investigated in another rape case.