Husband murders Afghan wife for having a girl

An Afghan mother has been murdered by her husband, angry that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted.

It is the latest in a series of examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months - including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery.

The episodes have raised the question of what will happen to the push for women's rights in Afghanistan as the international presence there shrinks along with the military drawdown. Nato forces are scheduled to pull out by the end of 2014.

In the 10 years since the overthrow of the Taliban, great strides have been made for women in Afghanistan, with many attending school, working in offices and even sometimes marching in protests.

Abuse and repression of women are still common however, particularly in rural areas where women are still unlikely to set foot outside of the house without a burqa robe that covers them from head to toe.

The man in the latest case, Sher Mohammad, fled the Khanabad district in Kunduz province last week, about the time a neighbour found his 22-year-old wife strangled in their house.

The wife, named Estorai, had warned family members that her husband had repeatedly reproached her for giving birth to a daughter rather than a son and had threatened to kill her if it happened again.

Police took the man's mother into custody because she appears to have collaborated in a plot to kill her daughter-in-law.

Baby boys are traditionally prized much more highly than girls in Afghanistan, where a son means a breadwinner and a daughter is seen as a drain on the family until she is married.