Washington Times

April 2, 2004
James Astill in Kabul

WHITE-BEARDED Nazir Shah sifts through a pile of magazines for teenage girls. "Look at what our sweet girls are suffering," says Mr Shah, a retired Afghan army officer, poring over the letters pages.

"These are real stories about girls who are suffering so much. Look: ?My family?s choice of husband is driving me to suicide?."

Mr Shah has a special interest in the trials of Afghanistan ?s young women. Six months ago, after being bullied by her in-laws once too often, his daughter, Mallali Nurzi, 26, soaked herself in petrol and struck a match.

Alerted by her screams, Ms Nurzi?s baby daughter discovered her mother writhing in a ball of flame. By the time the fire was extinguished, she was burned black all over. It took her 24 hours to die.

In a suicide note to her parents, Ms Nurzi explained why she had chosen such a horrific end. "Her husband?s family were treating her like an animal," said Mr Shah, tears trickling down his sunburned cheeks.

"Every minute of every day, she was fetching water, growing crops, looking after animals and children, cleaning the house. She was patient, but it was too much for her: she was educated and sensitive. She found it hard to live like a slave."

She was not alone in her suffering, nor in the agonising way she chose to die. Anecdotal evidence suggests several hundred young women are burning themselves to death in western Afghanistan every year.

A government mission sent to investigate the problem in Herat , the capital of western Afghanistan , reported that at least 52 young married or soon-to-be married women had burned themselves to death in recent months. The youngest was a bride-to-be of just 13.

Mr Shah says he knows of more than 80 cases of self-immolation in western Fara province, where his daughter took her life, in the past two years.

"There is not a village in Fara where a young woman has not burned herself to death."Self-immolation has an unsavoury place in the history of several Asian countries, as a traditional form of female suicide, but in Afghanistan it is borne out of despair rather than cultural imperative and is on the increase.

Behind the increase, says Amina Safi Afzali of the Afghan Human Rights Commission, is a deep disillusionment by many educated women because the two years since the Taleban?s fall have brought little freedom.

That is felt most keenly among former refugees in Iran , who had grown accustomed to a freer life there. Significantly, most of the female suicides recorded in Herat , close to Afghanistan ?s border with Iran , were of educated women.

"There are many more pressures on young Afghan women today, because they have learned what freedom is from radio and television, but that is not what they have," Ms Afzali said. "In the past, every girl knew she belonged to her family, she existed only for her father and her husband: she knew she wasn?t free. Now, young girls know they should have rights, and they are prepared to burn themselves to show society that they do not have them yet."

Certainly, that seems true of Ms Nurzi. She had completed high school in Kabul and Iran , before being married off to live in a remote village. For ten years she suffered abuses, too loyal to complain but, ultimately, too sensitive to endure them.

"Mallali knew what her rights were because she was from an educated family in Kabul ," her father said. "But in the village she had no rights at all. She must have been suffering terribly, because she wasn?t worried about the pain. She just wanted to die and be free, and this was her only way."

Afghanistan ?s new constitution affords equal rights to men and women. But, despite an increase in the number of girls in school, most Afghan women enjoy no more rights than they did under the Taleban. Most of the country is not controlled by the government but by a rabble of warlords every bit as misogynistic as the former regime.

"Women in this country are in a very bad situation, with forced marriages, families selling their daughters to pay drug debts, women being beaten all the time," said the deputy women?s minister, Suraya Sobah Rang. "We have to change these things in our society. But what society wants, and what women want are two different things."

Herat ?s warlord-governor, Ismail Khan, recently tried to face up to the fiery suicides in his city. In a televised visit to a Herat hospital, he met Shakiba, 19, a new bride, burned over 92 per cent of her body.

"My family was selling me and I didn?t know what else to do," she told the governor.

She also complained that her husband had not given her a lavish wedding reception as he had promised.

Mr Khan ordered all wedding reception centres closed, to discourage families from throwing lavish receptions.

But the centres stayed open, and shortly afterwards, Shakiba died.