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PROTEST BY FIRE - PART 1INTERVIEW BY BRUNO BAYLEY, PHOTOS BY ANNE HOLMES  Most of us are pretty familiar with the hotbed of sad news stories that is Afghanistan. The hundreds of killed and injured troops, the thousands of dead civilians, the poverty and instability, but all of them start to look a bit unremarkable once you stumble upon a hospital ward full of girls who have tried, and failed, to kill themselves by setting themselves on fire, a horrible form of suicide known as self-immolation. Franco-American photojournalist Anne Holmes came across these young women in Herat Regional Hospital in the province of Herat. We spoke to her about what she encountered there.
Anne Holmes: I travelled to Afghanistan in July 2007 because I wanted to see what the war looked like, the war that my country [the US] was fighting. I wanted to see how the people were living, how their lives had been affected, particularly women. I remember talking with a colleague about the first elections after the 2001 invasion and how amazing it was to see so many women line up to vote. The Taliban years had been really hard for Afghans, and initially there was a fair bit of good will towards the US, but that sentiment was dwindling and I wanted to take a survey of civilian life. Did you go there looking for these girls or find them by chance and thus stumble upon the self-immolation phenomenon? I knew about it. I had read about it and seen two other photo essays, and I felt compelled to tell the story myself because it just seemed like such a cry for help. I suppose I was trying to wrap my head around it too, trying to understand what would push someone to such extremes. All the cases I interviewed used the most basic means of setting themselves on fire. One day they doused themselves with cooking oil, petrol or kerosene and struck a match.  What drives these women to do this? All but one of the women I interviewed complained of some form of mistreatment by men. It was either that they had been forced to marry at a very young age with a much older man, or abuses were occurring within the family, or both. Beatings were talked of openly, but many girls spoke in vague terms about “problems” or “arguments” that left big question marks. In Afghan society, there is no way to talk about sexual abuse. It is too shameful. But a UN report, which consisted of anonymous interviews, found that a lot of these young women are being molested by family members, or being used as prostitutes by their husbands. What is the significance of the burning? These young women are being beaten, abused verbally or sexually, and have virtually no control over their lives. They are usually married off at a very young age at which point they are absorbed into the husband’s family. They have no actual self-determination, but their act seems to suggest that they want it very desperately. Ending your life is in itself an act of self-determination, but setting yourself on fire is more than just suicide, in my opinion. It’s a statement, particularly in a Muslim society where harming the body in any way is considered sacrilege. There seems to be no way to put the kinds of abuses they are enduring into utterable language and maybe self-immolation breaks the silence in a way. It forces people to question “why?”  CONTINUED PROTEST BY FIRE | 1 | 2 | >
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