Girl, 16, Buried Alive


How dare she talk to boys as friends!
It’s time to dig a hole
This is where her flirting ends!
It’s time to dig a hole
At sixteen years, a headstrong girl
Get in the hole and kneel
She used to be my precious pearl
Get in the hole and kneel
She would not bend to my demands
A shovel-full of dirt
So hold her tight and bind her hands
A shovel-full of dirt
The family council called for death
Ignore her cries and screams
Inhaling earth with every breath
Ignore her cries and screams
Our family’s honor is at stake
So bury her alive
We have a code we cannot break
So bury her alive
Throw more dirt down on her head
A daughter must obey
It took a while, but now she’s dead
A daughter must obey
My daughter’s gone, the shameless whore
A father’s word is law
But no great loss–I’ve got eight more
A father’s word is law


This is the hole where she died. Where her own family buried her alive. Where she breathed and swallowed dirt, kneeling with hands bound, until her death restored her family’s honor.

M.M., a 16 year old Turkish girl, had male friends she would talk to. It appears, according to reports, that this was the reason her own father and grandfather buried her alive.

This is one of those stories I cannot read without putting my daughter’s face on the victim’s. Sixteen was not that long ago.

Comments

  1. says

    Burying them alive seems about right….I understand the "different culture" thing, I do…I also have as my friend for 30+ years a Turkisk woman, who's father would never have done something like this.The patriarchy can be a horrible, deadly thing.

  2. says

    One of the hardest things about becoming an atheist was abandoning the concept of 'cosmic justice'. Reading this story makes me yearn for a judgment day and a nice Hell. But as Pratchett has Death say, "There is no Justice, there is just us."

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