Afghan Women Burn Themselves To Escape Abuse (VIDEO)

Eight years after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, many Afghan women continue to live in repressive and often abusive environments. To escape, many women turn to suicide, while others choose self-immolation as a means to escape family problems.

A video released by Reuters features a hospital in Herat province that specializes in treating women who burn themselves.

"I burnt myself because my in-laws were torturing me," says a young girl in the video. "They were beating me all the time. I did not have any other choice but to burn myself. I was ten-years-old when I got married."

Watch the short video below.

Comments

[StJames]

11:55 AM on 11/18/2009

Married at 7, a mother by 12...that is disgusting. These women are burning the wrong people. I swear the legendary Amazons had the right idea...modern science means men are completely superfluous to the survival of the species...Certainly Afghani women would be better off without them.

[Jolimont]

03:06 PM on 11/20/2009

From books I've read that deal with the issue of oppression of women in Muslim societies (Infidel, Thousand Splendid Suns) it seems like it's often the women oppressing other women. They do it to gain power in they eyes of their men, but females are the ones enforcing the extreme patriarchy culture. For instance, it's usually women doing the genital mutilation on girls, not men, it's the women who hold the knife.

It was also women in China who did the horribly mutilating and painful feet biding on their daughters. They did it to please the men, but again, they were the one perpetrating on other women.

So making men irrelevant wouldn't solve much of anything. However, giving women the self-respect to see themselves as equal might lead them to not seek the approval of men and sick patriarchal ideals. That would be good.

[topkatnc]

06:35 AM on 11/18/2009

I wish some way that they could come here to the United States and start a new life....we need to help them some how...

[winningticket]

09:53 AM on 11/18/2009

I was going to say the same thing. These women have a well founded fear of persecution and should be allowed to come to the US (provided that's what they want).

[Sam1234567]

10:04 AM on 11/18/2009

Or how about we support our troops in winning the war. Fostering a new democratic Govt. with laws, separated from 15th century religious influence.

Then they can live in their own country. Novel idea I know.

[LaFilleEnRose]

04:12 PM on 11/18/2009

The summer before 9/11, I read a heartbreaking email about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban. Their high suicide rate. Their sickening lives. It was shocking. I shared it with friends. Not long after were the television news clips of the Taliban blowing up ancient sculptures of Buddha or whatever. Music had been banned. ((Imagine a world without music)...not to mention dancing. Frankly, joy had been destroyed unless you count the so-called joy of old male perverts who got to control everything and feed their sick fetishes. We piddled away year after year of seriously helping the Afghan people while we spent our treasure for 8 years in Iraq...ignoring the very place that spawned the attack on us. Such darkness will continue to spawn cruelty and export it if we let it. Of course there's misery in plenty of places. But in Afghanistan, their sickness is based on a self-righteousness that uses God and a sick theology as justification...and that means they think it is their duty to spread it. And frankly, because they hit us, it is our duty to stop it. If the American people would only get behind it...including we progressives...and stopped comparing it in fear to Viet Nam or any war we don't like, then we'd not only be helping them but ourselves. It won't be easy. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can. All we can.

[MadridFrank]

08:20 PM on 11/17/2009

Talking points of new Left :oh haven't you heard christanity is as oppressive as islam!

[floater]

08:38 AM on 11/18/2009

what are you talking about, can't you just focus on this horrible story, is everything defendable

[DevonTexas]

10:29 AM on 11/18/2009

And it is! Fundamentalist Xianity encourages crimes just as much as Islam. I guess you haven't been attentive.

[MadridFrank]

12:10 PM on 11/18/2009

Again,the intellectual,cutural dishonesty to equate Christianity to Islam is denial at it's most disturbing manisfestation.

[LyssaBarnes]

07:47 PM on 11/17/2009

This makes my blood run cold. We must do all we can to build a world community that treats everyone with equal value.

[janeycat]

01:00 AM on 11/18/2009

and yet there is another story on this same web site that tells about women being beaten for wearing a _bra

[TParrish]

02:15 PM on 11/18/2009

Another about a female journalist being sentenced to lashes for participating in a TV show in which people TALKED about sex.

[AnotherAndy]

05:52 PM on 11/17/2009

One word, Islam!

[chaya]

06:55 PM on 11/17/2009

Nope, sorry, one word never explains anything. Islam is not the problem. The problem is that Afghanistan is still incredibly backward. Your own ancestors were just as bad at one time. Were they Christian? Just as bad.

This is what we're fighting: a country so backward, so rooted in the past, that it would be right at home in 3000 BCE.

[land2341]

07:08 PM on 11/17/2009

The Q'ran allows women to divorce, own property and speak against their husbands in court. It is the cultures that have changed that in countries where no one can read the book for themselves.....

[MadridFrank]

08:23 PM on 11/17/2009

please name 1,just one mulsim society/country were gays have rights?One!

[atretrioeciii]

05:01 PM on 11/17/2009

The most frustrating thing about a story like this is the fact that in the end these women are in a situation that has been going on so long that it has become almost impossible to think of anything that can be done about it. This seems to be a culture more concerned with obedience than freedom. How do you make someone respect someone else? That sons would see their mothers treated in such ways and then told that it was acceptable is beyond my comprehension. In a society that seems to put religion up as its main source of rule and law how can this same culture allow its women to be treated so poorly? And is this situation worse than what we are being told? I mean, has this been going on and we are just finally learning about it? And if so, I don't even want to think about what else could be going on. Will someone please come up with a solution? That women would do this to themselves to escape worse treatment..... my brain is having a tough time absorbing this.

[Muggersmom]

04:29 PM on 11/17/2009

This story is beyond heartbreaking, beyond belief.so sad, what can we do to help them?

[Tulka2]

05:32 PM on 11/17/2009

The first principle of non-violence is to never allow yourself nor anyone in your presence to be humiliated. That means our sisters in our own space. Other than that....? Money to get them out, although, from the looks of this burn unit, they will only last a little longer.

[Sam1234567]

10:12 AM on 11/18/2009

We could support our troops nation building mission there. Duh.

[grind88]

04:05 PM on 11/17/2009

The blend of poverty and radical muslim beliefs often turns into saddening displays of horror inflicted upon the weakest. If we could find a way to connect them to the world of 2009 instead nof bombing them back to the stone ages, maybe we could make a difference. Absolutely heartbreaking.