HUMAN INTEREST NEWS

 Disfigured for leaving her husband
By Hakeem Babalola

This photo of Aisha won the World Press Photo of the year 2010 and it is being displaced at the Neprajzi Museum, Budapest where a conference was held on September 29. African News Hungary gathered that Bibi Aisha was disfigured for leaving her husband who is a Taliban fighter. "You never forget the image," says Femke van der Valk, Project Manager, World Press Photo. "But [the woman] still has a lot of dignity".

Bibi Aisha, 18, (@ the time of incident) was disfigured as retribution for fleeing her husband’s house in Oruzgan province, in the center of Afghanistan, according to World Press Photo.

At the age of 12, Aisha and her younger sister had been given to the family of a Taliban fighter under a Pashtun tribal custom for settling disputes. 

Aisha now

When she reached puberty she was married to him, but she later returned to her parents’ home, complaining of violent treatment by her in-laws. Men arrived there one night demanding that she be handed over to be punished for running away. 

Aisha was taken to a mountain clearing, where, at the orders of a Taliban commander; she was held down and had first her ears sliced off, then her nose. 

In local culture, a man who has been shamed by his wife is said to have lost his nose, and this is seen as punishment in return. 

Aisha was abandoned, but later rescued and taken to a shelter in Kabul run by the aid organization Women for Afghan Women, where she was given treatment and psychological help. After time in the refuge, she was taken to America to receive further counseling and reconstructive surgery.


Picture by Jodi Bieber, South Africa, Institute for Artist Management/Goodman Gallery for Time magazine

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