Villagers in Papua New Guinea have formed a protective ring around a teenage girl so police can’t investigate her for beheading her rapist father.

This is going on in PNG’s Western Highlands.  A local newspaper quoted a pastor as saying the father raped his daughter after her mother and three other siblings left to visit relatives. 

“The father wanted to rape his daughter again in the morning inside the house and that was when the young girl picked up the bush knife and chopped her father's head off,” Pastor Lucas Kumi told PNG's Post Courier newspaper.

The villagers quickly realized the father’s actions were “evil” and are protecting the girl.  Cops say that a crime was allegedly committed, referring to the 40-something father’s assault on his own 18-year old daughter.  But they still have to investigate the man’s death.

PNG women suffer disproportionately from the country’s endemic sex crimes and domestic violence.