What kind of conditions make over 50 women feel their only choice was to set themelves on fire?

Question

Article from "Radio Free Europe": Self-Immolation By Women In Herat Continues At Alarming Rate: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/02/f287f1fb-4a6e-4a65-bf1c-d2d48e7e9a6f.html

Why is this happening? According to RFE: "Self-immolation by women in the western Afghan province of Herat continues to alarm officials and aid workers more than a year after a delegation from Kabul investigated the trend. The delegation determined that within just a few months, at least 52 women in the province had burned themselves to death -- often to escape an abusive marriage. Afghan doctors & officials say at least 184 woman brought to Herat's regional hospital are thought to have set themselves on fire during the past year -- and more than 60 have died as a result. The real number of self-immolation suicides & attempted suicides is likely to be even higher because only those brought to a hospital are being registered. Many Afghan institutions have little info about the rights of women."

Thanks for a more recent article and update about this issue-I had been looking at many recent articles from many countries and forgot to check the date on this one. Unfortunately, it is still taking place...

Answer 1

That article is pretty old. Here's one with statistic from this summer.

Answer 2

When I hear stuff like this I know that I would kill myself rather than live in such a place - there is NO other way out!
The murder by immolation that someone mentioned is actually a real problem in India. It is done in the kitchen and then they say it was an aciident. About 20,ooo Indian women a year die this way, and many more are terribly injured. It is usually because the husband or his familly are not happy with the dowry, or that the woman isn't producing boy children.

Answer 3

It is just awful the abuses that our sisters all over the world are experiencing. It just confirms just how much more work needs to be done. It is so difficult in many Muslim majority ruled governments to allow change to happen. They fear that they are going to lose their values and ideals if women are given options. And it sickens me that the our media chooses to cover stories about celebrities rather than stories about other real issues in our world. It is a wonder why our society is so self absorbed. Regardless of whether these women are set on fire as a means of suicide or homicide, the fact that it happens is sick enough. THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING PERIOD!!! I cannot even begin to imagine what these women are going through. I hope that the heaven they enter when leave this earth will treat them with the kindness that they never knew. God bless them and may they rest in peace. They will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Answer 4

Yeah, it sure makes some (if not many) of our problems pale, right?

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According to the link you posted:

"Poverty and domestic violence are common reasons for attempted suicide by women in Herat.
There are also cases where the relatives and friends of the husband have played a role in a bad relationship. It is not only the result of the husband's behavior. A woman's own relatives may have forced her to marry a particular man. Or girls may be forced to get married at a very young age. So when such a girl grows up, she feels obligated to go back to the home of her own father and burn herself there."

Sometimes is hard to try to understand a culture, but such is the world.

Answer 5

Perhaps having ABSOLUTELY NO FREEDOM of their own - in EVERY SINGLE aspect of their lives...

Women in this part of the world are treated worse than slaves - they are just mere OBJECTS for their husbands (and ALL the men in their family).

They are FORCED to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING the mem tell them to do - and are PHYSICALLY abused (hit/stoned) if they even so much as hesitate (let alone speak out in defiance). To them, this sort of pain is two things:

A way out (by being relocated to a hospital), and a cry for attention (that would go unheard by ANYONE who could possibly help).

Imagine being beaten/tortured for simply NOT wearing the clothes that your husband has laid out for you - or if dinner was late (or cold, or too spicy)...

I could go on - but I think I've said enough to get the point across. These actions might seem INSANE to people from OUR society - but people in other parts of the world live VERY different lives then we do.

Answer 6

Its probably the mental abuse. They have to prove that to get their divorce. Mental abuse can do any number of things to a person. Especially in a culture where women have fewer rights than their male counterparts. Its hard enough to suffer through in a society where women can get help, let alone somewhere like that.

Answer 7

Wow....that's incredibly sad.

It sure puts things into perspective... it makes me thank my lucky stars that I was born in this country. We may not have absolute equality, but we are MUCH further ahead in that goal than in a lot of other places in this world. My heart goes out to those women. Had I the unfortunate luck of having been born there, perhaps I could have easily been one of them.... I feel for them.....I really do. It seems to me that there are a ton of less painful ways to commit suicide if one really wanted to die. The fact that they chose to burn themselves alive tells me that not only did they feel trapped and hopeless, they actually internalized the blame for their abuse. In other words, they felt they were "bad" and deserved to suffer....this brings tears to my eyes.

Answer 8

My heart goes out to these women. I can only imagine what life was like for them if suicide was their only relief.

Thank you for bringing some realism to this forum regarding the battle for women's rights - I was beginning to believe only clowns 'lived' here.

Answer 9

To these uneducated ang illiterate women, they have no hope and death is the best, they believe.

That is why it's a 3rd world country.

Answer 10

If they were smart, they would take out a few of their tormentors instead of committing suicide.