A man in Tajikistan has been charged with driving his wife to commit suicide amid allegations he pressured her into taking virginity tests and then demanded a second bride after disbelieving the results.
Rajabbi Khurshed, 18, killed herself by drinking a lethal dose of vinegar 40 days after her wedding to 24-year-old Zafar Pirov, who she had never met before the arranged marriage.
Despite the deceased passing a government-required prenuptial exam, including a virginity test, Pirov confessed taking her for a further two tests, both of which she passed but he did not believe, before casting her out.
Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Khurshed’s family, who arranged the marriage, said that their daughter told them on her deathbed that she had felt under massive pressure to accept Pirov’s demands for a second wife and couldn’t take it any longer.
But in his defence, the 24-year-old said: “My wife gave me a written statement that she allows me to get a second wife because she wasn’t a virgin when we got married.”
The young woman’s mother, Fazila Mirzoeva, is so upset about her death that she has pleaded with the country’s president, Emomali Rahmon, for help.
She said her daughter had never had a boyfriend and or sex with anyone before her marriage to Pirov.
The young groom could be facing eight years in jail if found guilty of driving Khurshed to suicide.
Virginity tests for women before marriages are common in Tajikistan, where casual sex is deemed socially unacceptable.
As of 2015, it is compulsory for both men and women to undergo medical check-ups before a wedding, but for women this often includes a test of ‘purity’.
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