Self-immolation – fleeing violence

medica mondiale presents the first systematic study of suicides among Afghan women

An eyewitness report

Dr. Hafiza Azimi’s family comes from Afghanistan and she lives in Germany, whilst also working for medica mondiale as part of the “Doctorane Omid” project. For several weeks every year doctors based in Germany work in clinics in their home countries, where they are above all contact persons for their male and female colleagues on the issue of sexualised violence. In summer 2006 Hafiza Azimi worked with burns victims, members of their families and clinic staff in the Herat Regional Hospital.

The hospital has 300 beds, including a new ward for burns victims, with capacity for 16 to 17 patients. In Azimi’s experience most women with burns are already in a coma when they arrive in the clinic. Acute treatment is not available in Herat. Patients have to bring along bandages and medicaments and receive almost no treatment if they cannot afford to do so. Chances of survival are therefore poor, particularly as staff in the clinic are incompetent and unmotivated due to their poor pay.

Azimi talked to female patients about their personal situations. The patients were women between 18 and 40, almost all of them from families with many children. On average the women had six children. The reason for the burns was almost always attempted suicide, although there were also cases in which women had attempted in this way to draw attention to their despair. Some women had been intentionally injured, and some of the incidents were accidents.

A quotation from Hafiza Azimi:
“I saw women whose lives were lived on the verge of despair, who sought and found death as a last resort. For example, a young patient, 14 years old, had poured natural gas over herself, because she was tormented and abused by her grandmother. She had lost one parent and was illiterate, and had to care for her grandmother, who was doubly incontinent for years. This patient died after a week.

Another young mother of two, who experienced daily violence from her husband in front of the children, was threatened by her husband. When he also announced that he was going to take a second wife, she poured petrol over herself.

Another case was a 25-year-old patient. She came from a village and had been pushed into a coerced marriage. The husband was a heroin addict and violent. He hit her and finally poured gas over her.”
 

Conclusions

The main reasons for these acts of despair can be summarised as follows:

• Coerced marriages of children expose girls to arbitrary treatment and violence.
• Domestic violence is a major contributory factor leading girls and women to kill themselves.
• Around 80-90 per cent of the women and girls are illiterate and therefore know too little about their rights and have no chance of receiving advice.
• The police and judiciary play down the problem.
• Extreme poverty causes families to sell their daughters to other families or to a husband.
• In Badla, a traditional way of resolving conflict, the “guilty” family gives a girl to the family that has been wronged by way of retribution. This custom is widespread.

 

 

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