'Self-Immolation On The Rise Among Women', IRIN News, 9 September 2008
EXCERPT: "Over the past six months, at least 47 self-immolation cases have been recorded by Herat city hospital alone, of whom seven were saved but 40 died. 'Ninety percent of the women who commit self-immolation die at hospital due to deep burns and fatal injuries,' said Arif Jalai, a dermatologist at the Herat hospital. Almost all the women had doused themselves with petrol and set themselves alight, according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). More than six years after the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2001 when all women were denied the right to work and education, many women suffer domestic and social violence, discrimination and lack of access to unbiased justice and other services, women's rights activists say. At least 184 cases of self-immolation were registered by the AIHRC in 2007 against 106 in 2006. The phenomenon is feared to have increased further in 2008, women's rights activists said."
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See also:
'Terror of a different kind - Commentary', The Guardian, 9 September 2008
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