This is so disturbing.......

[OwnedByFerrets]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20839736/site/newsweek/


Sept. 18, 2007 - The doctor knows, just from glancing at the burns, that someone is lying to him. Srood Tawfiq, a reconstructive surgeon at Sulaimaniya Hospital in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, buttons his white lab coat and steps into the burn unit. "Busy day yesterday," he says, pulling back a curtain to reveal a sleeping 16-year-old girl with kerosene burns over 90 percent of her body. The mother of the young woman, hovering over the hospital bed, tells Tawfiq that her daughter slipped and scalded herself while carrying a portable stove. The doctor listens sympathetically. But later, out of the woman's earshot, he explains that he doubts the mother's explanation. If it were really an accident, he whispers, "you don't get this degree of burn." Outside the hospital room he pulls off his hygienic mask and shakes his head. "We never tell them that they're going to die," he says quietly.

[babylonsister]

1. Disturbing is right. To have no hope left must be tragic. nt

[AlCzervik]

2. a bit more here

Women's rights advocates in Sulaimaniya believe that the majority of the burn cases are suicide attempts; the remainder are suspected to be honor killings or other murders disguised as accidents or suicide. ("Cooking accident" has long been a euphemism for dowry killing in India.) Doctors told me that it's virtually impossible to distinguish between murder and suicide based on the burns and the women's stories. Still, anecdotal evidence suggests that the trend may be aggravated by a copycat effect among Kurdistan's teenagers. One 20-year-old woman, Heshw Mohammad, who briefly considered burning herself after her father killed her boyfriend two years ago, told me that self-immolation has become a sort of fashion among teenage Kurdish women. "They imitate each other," she says.


Disturbing and sad.

[uppityperson]

3. k&r

[AuntPatsy]

4. More than disturbing, it shows how easily hope has been destroyed for far too many.

[Devlzown]

5. I never cease to be disgusted

by how women are still treated in much of the world. It's the 21st century and a very significant portion of women in the world are still property. I don't care what someone's culture is, the horrible treatment of women, like slavery, is unacceptable. This is one area where the world could benefit from America's influnence. We are far form perfect and women are better off in some countries than they are here, but we are still light years ahead of much of the world regarding this issue.