| A team dispatched from Kabul to investigate reports of self-immolation by women in the western Afghan Herat Province discovered that most of those cases occurred among women in forced marriages, the Kabul-based daily "Hewad" reported on 7 March. Soraya Parlika said the cases her investigative team probed "revealed that 70 percent of these women were forcibly married, 20 percent of them were living in extreme poverty, and the remaining 10 percent were engaged in immoral activities [presumably prostitution]." Parlika reportedly added that women might also be setting themselves alight as a result of "influence of the neighboring country, Iran, on them," although the "Hewad" report is vague on this last point. Parlika said there have been fewer incidents of self-immolation by women in Herat than the media have suggested, however, "Hewat" did not cite figures. |