Afghan woman killed for giving birth to third girl

Kabul: Afghan police were on Monday hunting a man who allegedly killed his wife after she gave birth to the couple's third daughter, an official said.

Storay, 30, was beaten to death in the Khan Abad district of the northern province Kunduz last Wednesday after she delivered another baby girl, angering her husband who had wanted a son, police said.

"She was beaten to death by her husband after she gave birth to their third baby girl. We were informed of the case by Storay's father," Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, the provincial police spokesman, told AFP.

There were signs of torture on her body, he added.

"Police have arrested Storay's mother-in-law in connection with the case, but her husband has fled. Police are searching for him," Hussaini said.

Violence and abuse against women continues to be a major problem in Afghanistan, a decade after US-led troops brought down the Taliban regime.

Rise in violence

Last month, police found a teen bride who had been locked in a toilet for six months at her husband's house in neighbouring Baghlan province.

She was burned and beaten, and had her fingernails pulled out.

British charity Oxfam says 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.