Gulbar was admitted to a local hospital in Badghis province in Northern Afghanistan in November 2005. She has been burnt by her husband.
According to her mother, she married a man 3 years ago but he was very cruel person and was torturing her on daily bases. Finally Gulbar run away to her mother’s house. The next day her husband came and asked her to return home otherwise he will kill her, she refused to go with him, when he found her alone in the house, throw petrol on her body, set her on fire and he himself escaped.
The neighbors hear her voice and rush to help, when they control the fire, almost 40% of her body was burnt.
She has been in the hospital for past 40 days but no file has been cased against her heartless husband. Police and other authorities, who are mostly former commanders, turn a blind eye on these cases.
A doctor in the hospital where she is hospitalized told that they receive many women patients who either have committed self-burning or have been burnt by their husbands but due to none existence of better facilities their treatment is also not possible there. He believed that forced marriage and lack of legal support to these victims is the main cause of all such sad incidents.
“A Herat regional hospital last year recorded 160 cases of attempted suicide among girls and women between the ages of 12 and 50.” (Radio Liberty, March 1, 2004)
But the real figures are very higher than that, because most victims are never rushed to the hospital and give their lives in the spot.
These bitter realities about the plight of Afghan women are not reflected in the world media, which in itself implies that unlike what is being trumpeted by the Western media and leaders, Afghan women are not “liberated” at all. Afghan women have a long way to fight fundamentalism and male-chauvinistic culture, whose top guardians are now in the power in our ill-fated land.
