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IRBIL,Iraq-Three weeks after she was burned, the petite 18-year-old lay in a hospital bed, her head, arms and upper torso swathed in cotton. He seared face was daubed with ointment. She looked at the ceiling and thought about her new life. "I don't know about the future," she said, still looking up. "It will be whatever Allah brings." She refused to give her name.A gas stove had exploded when she'd tried to light it, she said.Her nurses don't buy it. They recognize the pattern of the burns and have seen hundreds of cases like hers, many with variations on the same story. A teenage girl with a young marriage, and "a cooking accident."In many parts of the world, such accidents would be attributed to "honor killings," the murders of young women by family or spouses because they didn't work hard enough, complained too much or dated the wrong men. There are honor killings in Iraqi Kurdistan , as well.But health-care professionals and women's experts stress that what they're seeing here is different: a suicide epidemic in which Kurdistan's girls and young women are setting themselves on fire.Suicide by fire among girls and young women in the region has been increasing sharply since 2004, said hospital workers, regional health officials and women's advocates.The reasons may be manifold. Some experts blame an economic boom that's lured traditional villagers into cities with more modern values, resulting in family strains. But because the victims include lifelong city residents as well, a patriarchal culture that gives little power to women may be a bigger factor.Kurdistan , a largely self-governing region of three provinces in northern Iraq , doesn't have accurate historical health data, but there were at least 360 female-burning suicides last year, said the region's health minister, Zyran Osman Yones.Some victims are as young as 12, but most range from age 15 to 25. Nearly all choose fire as their method. The typical method is dousing themselves with kerosene and striking a match, often in a locked shower room."It's the most painful way to die," Yones said. "I don't know why they do it. In other cultures, they may use pills or guns, but for Kurds, they burn themselves. We even hear of cases among Kurds who have immigrated to Europe ."Hundreds more have survived with horrible scars, only to have their husbands and friends desert them and parents hide them from the rest of the family and visitors out of shame, said Mahabat Amin Monsour, the director of the Women's Union of Kurdistan , the largest women's advocacy group in the region.Almost none admits a suicide attempt, partly because suicide is forbidden for Muslims. But half a dozen nurses and physical therapists interviewed at Kurdistan's two major burn units, in the cities of Irbil and Sulaimaniyah , said that about 80 percent of the women brought in with burns had tried to kill themselves and the number increased each year.The rising number of cases, Yones said, coincides with the economic boom triggered by the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Saddam had been the region's greatest enemy, periodically attacking the Kurds and killing tens of thousands.Now, strong security that's prevented much of the terrorism that racks the rest of Iraq along with a wave of construction and foreign investment have made Kurdistan a Middle East success story....To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
