Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Farzana, left, at the Herat burn hospital with her mother. She set herself on fire when her father-in-law belittled her.
“If you run away from home, you may be raped or put in jail and then sent home and then what will happen to you?†asked Rachel Reid, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who tracks violence against women.
Returned runaways are often shot or stabbed in honor killings because the families fear they have spent time unchaperoned with a man. Women and girls are still stoned to death. Those who burn themselves but survive are often relegated to grinding Cinderella existences while their husbands marry other, untainted women.
“Violence in the lives of Afghanistan’s women comes from everywhere: from her father or brother, from her husband, from her father-in-law, from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law,â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/world/asia/08burn.html?src=me&ref=general