Desperate Afghan Women Opt for Fiery Suicides (Thank you, W & Laura Bush)

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=602&ncid=602&e=10&u=/nm/20040423/lf_nm/afghan_women_suicides_dc

Desperate Afghan Women Opt for Fiery Suicides
Fri Apr 23, 8:25 AM ET

By David Brunnstrom

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Nineteen-year-old Zahara says the day of her wedding was one of the happiest of her life. But the marriage quickly became a nightmare of quarrels and beatings. Just three month later, she lies in hospital, her pretty face and much of her body scarred by horrific burns, after she poured petrol over her head and lit a match.

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, despite a new constitution enshrining women's rights that the Western-backed government passed in January, this remains a depressingly familiar story.

Zahara is one of many women to attempt a fiery suicide rather than be trapped in an unhappy marriage or denied the opportunity to make something of their lives.

In the past year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has recorded at least 110 cases of self-immolation by women in just five parts of the country.

There have been no fewer than 56 cases in Herat, a Western province ruled by a hard-line Islamist accused of continuing "Taliban-like" restrictions on women. <snip>

Herat Hospital director Dr Arif Shaharn said some women chose suicide rather than being sold into marriages to men as old as 75. The youngest to burn herself in Herat was just 14. <snip>

[seemslikeadream]

1. EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES

MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER....
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. Breaks my heart.

Wasn't one of the original reasons for invading and attacking Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and save Afghani women from their apartheid policy? (In addition to capturing Osama, of course. :eyes:) But the Bushistas were too eager to get into Iraq, and soon the mindless American people forgot about those poor women in burqas. And the situation reverted to exactly what it had been before the war in many places, except that in place of a national Taliban were the regional and tribal warlords, and the U.S. media continues to ignore the situation.

For a fictionalized account of the American invasion of Afghanistan from a child's view, I highly recommend "Parvana's Journey." I had to read it for grad school earlier this year, and sat on my couch sobbing after I finished it. Then I turned on the TV for a little release and the first thing I saw was a commercial for Halliburton. :grr: I nearly through a show through the television.