Young Afghan girls should be playing and going to school.

But instead, many are victims in a country riddled with corruption and lawlessness. A three-year-old girl was recently kidnapped and raped by unidentified men, a government official confirmed. The girl was later released and is recovering.

One 12-year-old girl who says she was brutally raped by five gunmen in northern Afghanistan has bravely come forward and is pleading for help from Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. CNN reports that her grief-stricken family wants justice for their daughter, who, activists say, is just one of many such victims. The simple act of them coming forward automatically makes them a target.

This girl’s family members say they’ll take their own lives unless justice is served.

"We will all commit suicide; this is not living," cries the mother of the girl.

The privately owned Ariana TV aired video of the family two weeks ago before it was posted on the Internet by an activist group, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

The video is heart-wrenching to watch. Click here to view it.

The girl covers her face with her blue headscarf and tries to recount the story, weeping all the while. Her mother wails in the background, as her sobbing father tries to explain that in his country protecting your family is the source of dignity and honor. The girl’s younger brother, not quite aware of what is going on but very aware of the pain his family is feeling, wipes away tears.

The family has met with Karzai, who wept with the family and subsequently fired the police chief from the city where the attack occurred. The family now lives in a government-provided safe house in Kabul in fear of retaliation against their public outcry.

"This is just an example among thousands of other cases," Shaima, a member of RAWA, told CNN. "The rest go unnoticed by the media."

RAWA says women and girls, particularly young girls, are raped, kidnapped and murdered on a regular basis. The victims who live are usually too scared to come forward. Some interpretations of Sharia, or Islamic law, say in order for a rape to be validated, victims must have four witnesses to the crime. If that requirement is not met, the victims can be charged with fornication or adultery. Sexual acts are also committed against young boys. The police or government authorities are often involved in the crimes, or just don’t have the means to deal with them.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, who plans to release a report in October on the state of Afghan children, says she knows of no other country in the world in which children suffer more than in Afghanistan.

"In all our meetings with children, it takes a lot of time to make them smile. That to me shows that there is not happiness in their hearts," she said.