Desperate Women Set Themselves Alight

Whenever 23-year-old Suhair starts to speak, she pulls a veil over her face to cover the disfiguring burns.

She set herself on fire last year after having failed to conceive three years into her marriage.

"My husband is demanding a child from me, and I’m infertile,” she said.

More and more women are choosing this desperate measure, setting themselves on fire in the hope of committing suicide.

The survivors are left with terrible scarring.

Sulaimaniyah Emergency Hospital sees a lot of the cases in this northern part of Iraq, and the statistics indicate an alarming rise in the numbers.

The Kurdistan Women's Union has launched an awareness campaign to try to persuade women not to take this drastic step.

"We’ve run a number of adverts to show women that no circumstances in life can justify a woman setting herself alight,” said Payman Izzadin, a spokesperson for the woman’s union.

Wazira, 37, lies in hospital, recovering from burns that cover most of her body. She has no fingers or nose, and all her hair has been burnt off. She constantly wails, "Oh, what did I do to myself? Why did I burn myself?"

A nurse at the Sulaimaniyah hospital who gave her name as Dilsoz said survivors are often ashamed to admit what they have done.

"We know that some of the women who come here have set themselves on fire, because we can smell the kerosene. And it is obvious they did it themselves from the nature of their injuries, particularly those whose burns go from top downwards."

Samira, an 18-year-old nomadic woman who sustained burns over almost all her body, is a typical case where doctors suspect a suicide attempt. Her mother said it was an accident involving a lantern.

"Women are frightened of their families and relatives, so they’re unable to admit they set themselves alight,” explained Izzadin. “Maybe they feel anger towards their husbands and want to conceal it.”

Most of the burn victims whom IWPR talked to blamed their husbands.

Mhabad, 30, told how hard-hearted her husband was.

"My husband asked me not to burn myself inside his house, but to do it outside," she said.

As she went into the backyard and set herself alight, her young son watched from the window, crying.

"I poured kerosene over myself to burn myself out of despair, because he doesn't love me," said Mhabad.

Now she has left hospital and returned to her husband. "He is bad to me, just like before.”

Haseeba, 22, suffered large-scale burns after a suicide attempt last year. Her face was rebuilt in six months of plastic surgery.

“My husband is not good to me and people look at me differently,” she said. But I don’t want to set myself on fire again. I regret it now.

“I just wanted to have a different life from the one I had in the past.”

Azeez Mahmood is an IWPR trainee journalist in Sulaimaniyah. The names of victims have been changed to protect their identities.