© Abdelhak Senna/AFP/Getty ImagesLast year Amina Filali, 16, killed herself after being forced to marry the man who had raped her. Here, her sister, Hamida, protests outside the local courthouse that approved the marriage deal.
A Moroccan teen committed suicide last month after her family forced her to marry her rapist, rights activists told Al Jazeera after reports of her death surfaced in the North African kingdom's media on Friday.
The suicide happened amid protracted efforts to repeal a law,
Article 475 of the
Moroccan Penal Code, exonerating rapists who marry their victims, after the high-profile suicide last year of another teen,
Amina Filali.
In March 2012, 16-year-old Filali killed herself in the northern town of Larache by taking rat poison after she was forced to marry her rapist. Her death provoked several demonstrations and the Twitter hashtag #RIPAmina to demand the repeal of Article 475.
The 16-year-old girl who died last month was from the northern port city of Tetouan and was raped by another minor, according to Abdel Ali El-Allawi, director of the local chapter of the international NGO the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH).
The girl's family has refused to grant interviews to the press.
"He was put in prison," said Allawi. "The family of the rapist entered negotiations with the family of the victim. They proposed the two get married."
"These are things that are common here in Morocco. When a man rapes a woman or girl, the justice authorities say, you have a choice - you can marry the girl or go to prison."
Comment: "If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed." ~ George Carlin