阿富汗童婚悲剧 14岁孕妇被烧死

KABUL, Afghanistan — As a young girl, Zahra became consumed with the idea of a life of learning, seizing on every new opportunity that trickled to her isolated town in the western Afghan province of Ghor.

阿富汗喀布尔——作为一个小姑娘，扎赫拉(Zahra)向往着一个不断学习的人生，生活在阿富汗西部古尔省的这个偏远小镇上，她会抓住每一个机会去学习。

In a school drama, she performed the role of Parisa, a young girl barred from attending school by her conservative family. When an educational circus traveled through about three years ago, she was one of the enthusiastic participants, selected as one of three students among 70 to take her new juggling act to Kabul.

参加学校的戏剧表演时，她扮演了帕里萨(Parisa)，一个被保守的家人禁止上学的小姑娘。大约三年前一个教育马戏团途经镇子时，她是热心的参与者之一。她和另外两名学生被从70人中选拔出来，前往喀布尔表演她新学到的抛接杂耍。

But within the short span of her life, she was bartered away.

但在她短暂的一生中，她被作为货品交易了出去。

When her mother was paralyzed and her father decided to marry again, Zahra, then around 11 years old, became part of the dowry, according to her father’s accounts to reporters. Then, about two years later, as a sixth grader, she was married off.

据她父亲告诉记者，当她的母亲瘫痪，而他决定再娶时，当时大约11岁的扎赫拉成了彩礼的一部分。之后过了大约两年，上六年级的她被嫁了出去。

Last week, Zahra arrived at the central hospital in Ghor with burns over 90 percent of her body. She died six days later, on Saturday, in a Kabul hospital. She was four months pregnant, and she was 14 years old, her father said.

上周，扎赫拉来到古尔省中心医院，全身90%烧伤。六天后的周六，她在喀布尔一家医院去世。她父亲说，去世时扎赫拉14岁，怀有四个月的身孕。

The father, Muhammad Azam, said that her death was the culminating act of long abuse by her husband’s family. He accused them of beating and stabbing her after she refused to work in the opium fields while pregnant, and he said they then set her on fire with gasoline to cover their crime.

扎赫拉的父亲穆罕默德·阿扎姆(Muhammad Azam)说，她的死是她丈夫一家长期虐待的结果。他指控他们在怀孕的扎赫拉拒绝在罂粟地里干活后殴打并用刀捅她，并表示在那之后，他们用汽油将她身上点燃，试图掩盖自己的罪行。

Zahra’s husband’s family insists that her death was by self-immolation, according to the police.

据警方介绍，扎赫拉的丈夫一家坚称她的死是自焚造成的。

As investigators in Kabul and Ghor tried to piece the episode together, the conversation about her life and death once again brought to the fore the issue of child marriage and women’s rights in Afghanistan. Despite years of effort to advance women’s basic rights and build a government that protects them, they largely are still treated as little more than property.

在喀布尔和古尔省的调查人员试图理清事情原委的同时，扎赫拉的生平和死亡引发的讨论，再次让阿富汗的童婚和女性权利问题成为了焦点。尽管多年来一直在努力促进女性的基本权利，建立一个保护女性的政府，她们大多依然被认为不过是一种财产。

Zahra’s family, with the help of activists, has set up a protest tent near the hospital in Kabul to demand justice. The arguments a New York Times reporter saw there on Monday over her age and the circumstances of her death also highlight a clash of values still unfolding in the country.

在活动人士的帮助下，扎赫拉的家人在喀布尔那家医院附近搭建了一顶抗议帐篷，要求公正处理此事。周一，《纽约时报》的一名记者在那里看到了围绕她的年龄和死因产生的争论。这些争论也突显了该国依然存在的价值观冲突。

Even her own relatives were quick to defend the tradition of marrying young girls off to settle family disputes. And by his own account, though it was later contradicted by other relatives, Mr. Azam bartered her away for a marriage performed before it would be legal under Afghan national law at age 16.

即便是她自己的亲戚，也迅速为把年轻女孩嫁出去以解决家庭纠纷这一传统辩解。根据阿扎姆自己的说法，他在女儿尚未达到阿富汗法律规定的结婚年龄16岁之前，就让女儿成了一桩婚姻中的交易品。不过后来，这番言论遭到其他亲属的反驳。

Mr. Azam initially told reporters in Ghor, as well as in Kabul, that Zahra, who had just one name, had been 11 years old when she was promised into marriage, and figured she was 14 when she died. Circus organizers as well as locals in Ghor recalled her as a “very lively” 13-year-old sixth-grader before she was married two years ago, which would make her 15 when she died.

阿扎姆一开始对古尔省以及喀布尔的记者表示，扎赫拉——她没有姓氏——在成为婚姻交易品的时候是11岁，因此算出她去世时是14岁。但马戏团的组织者和古尔省当地的人回忆起两年前尚未结婚的扎赫拉时，称她那时13岁，是一个“非常活泼”的六年级学生。若是这样，她去世时便是15岁。

But later in the day at the protest tent in Kabul, other relatives tried to control the narrative and speak over Mr. Azam, as it became evident that he could be liable for forcing a child into marriage. They said Mr. Azam was in shock and did not know what he was saying — that in fact, Zahra had been 15 when she was married and 17 when she died.

但当天晚些时候，在喀布尔的抗议帐篷里，其他亲属试图控制相关叙事，更正阿扎姆说过的话，因为显然，阿扎姆可能要因强迫孩童结婚承担法律责任。他们说，阿扎姆是懵了，不知道自己在说什么，并称实际上扎赫拉结婚时是15岁，去世时为17岁。