Afghan Woman Strangled for Giving Birth to a Baby Girl

An Afghan woman was choked to death after she gave birth to a baby girl for the third time.

The 30-year-old woman was killed by her husband and mother-in-law after having another daughter.

"Storay, a 30-year-old mother-of-three, was choked to death by her husband and her mother-in-law in a remote village in Khanabad district of Kunduz province," Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a police spokesperson, told Deutshe Presse-Agentur.

"She was told by her husband that if she delivered another baby girl, he would kill her," Hussaini said, adding that the woman gave birth a month ago.

"We have arrested Storay's mother-in-law and we are looking for her husband, too, who is on the run," he said.

The incident follows a teenage girl having been rescued by police last month in the nearby province of Baghlan, after her in-laws tortured her and kept her in a toilet for six months because she refused to prostitute herself.

Despite pledges by the United States, Nato and the Afghanistan government to help improve women's rights in Afghanistan, they continue to suffer from maltreatment and domestic violence.

Up to 25 percent of women in Afghanistan have been sexually abused, while a third of them are physically or psychologically abused on a routine basis, according to the UN.

Many are of them also not allowed to attend school or to work outside the home. They are forced to wear the burqa and can be killed for not being properly covered or escorted, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan reported.