Taboo on premarital sex can lead to tragedy in changing Oman

MUSCAT (Reuters) – When unmarried 19-year-old Sama got pregnant, she ran away from home to have an abortion rather than face family wrath. The young man who got her pregnant had refused to marry her, saying he could not afford the financial burden. So she went to share a room with a friend in a university hostel in the Omani capital Muscat, 450 km (280 miles) away from her hometown of Buraimi in the north of the Gulf Arab state. The abortionist was her friend’s aunt, a 76-year-old woman who boasted that she had successfully terminated over 200 fetuses in a long, illegal career. …