RAWA, February 15, 2008











Nafisa with her child in a hospital in Herat. Nafisa with her child in a hospital in Herat.

Nafisa is hospitalized with her child in a local hospital in Herat province in Western Afghanistan. She says her husband attacked her like a hungry tiger and bat her nose and then cut off her ear by a knife. She showed her child who is also burnt by her husband. Nafisa says: “I’ve lived ten painful years with my husband and he always beats me…. My husband also poured hot water over my child and she is also seriously injured.”

Nafisa begs Afghan government and human rights group to help her get divorce from her addicted husband.

Local office of the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan in Herat confirmed the incident and told reporters that her husband has escaped.

In the last days of December, in a similar incident the ear and nose of a woman named Nazia was cut by her coward husband in the Ghor province.

These two heart-wrenching stories are among the hundreds of cases of violence against women that has got the media’s attention. The piece of news was published in a time when weeks ago on the International Human Rights Day celebration in Herat province by the Independent Human Rights Commission, in an extremely disgusting manner it was declared that the conditions of women had improved and the cases of violence against women had decreased by fifty percent!

Unfortunately, in a warlord-blighted and mafia country the people who commit these crimes live in full amnesty and are not handed over to the law as the rulers themselves are corrupt and involved in cases of violence against women.

On 30th of January of this year, a 25 year old woman named Pakhtana burned herself in front of the Supreme Court of Laghman province after seeing the indifference of the court towards the case of her husband’s abusive behavior towards her.