Having escaped the fire but continually burning in society

07-05-2019 10:37

 Peregraf- Diman Ismael

She considers herself to be a condemned prisoner because she spends most of her time at home. She feels disturbed by other people’s stare and their hate speech bothers her.

Kani is a 25-year-old young girl but appears to have aged earlier. She is completely immersed into her depressing and horrible thoughts. She is badly suffering from two agonies: one being her burn injury and the other one being social pressure.

"I wish I died from my burn wounds instead of getting a partial burn", Kani says. She makes the previous statement owing to suffering from malicious gossip and she is on the verge of an irreversible mental breakdown.

Kani dwells in Garmiyan District. She informed Peregraf that she suffered from a first-degree burn while cooking in the kitchen due to a gas cylinder explosion a year ago. Her burn is fairly obvious but she has not undergone a cosmetic surgery yet to enable her to reconcile with her surroundings.

"People feel extremely frightened because of my burn injury, even children are really scared of me", she says. Every tittle-tattle about her burn marks reminds her of the past and leads her to feel a painful semi-death experience. Therefore she prefers to stay indoors rather than being harassed by people in public.

Kani is still very young. She is so stricken by overwhelming grief that she cannot even think of her future life and marriage.

There is a great number of women who has gone through the same terrible problems faced by Kani, a burn victim. They have suffered from burn injuries for some reasons and are harassed by the hate speech of society. NGOs and other responsible establishments have not given them any support in order to restore them to their normal lives. They could help those burn victims in many ways, such as paving the way for performing cosmetic surgery.

Hilind  is another 18- year-old burn victim.  She met with a dreadful car accident on her way to visit a friend two years ago and got widespread burn injuries including a burn on her face.

"I was unable to continue my academic studies and build my future because students are extremely scared of me and people started holding a negative point of view towards me". She said to Peregraf while crying with frustration.

However, there are significantly different stories among other women and girls who suffered from burn injuries as well. Their reactions are clearly dissimilar to the ones of Kani and Hilind. They were determined to start a new life and completely turned a blind eye to hate speech made by the public.

Asmar is a fictitious name given to a 30-year-old lady from Garmiyan District. She set herself on fire because of a social dispute.  She expressed her profound regret at the incident. Following imprisoning herself at home for year, she ultimately made up her mind to get over her mental trauma.

"I have currently built a friendly relationship with people. I happily work to earn my livelihood. I manage my home and do all of the house chores", she says. She is full of determination to face any other challenges.

There are several factors that help the burn victims to recover, such as high social consciousness and the widely held view of those women, but their firmness to confront any serious challenge is the main and determining factor.

Hawkar Karim, a social worker, talked to Peregraf about the effects of burn injuries on the victims. He believes that burn victims with mark on their faces consider themselves as inferior. They do not integrate with people and feel being left alone. They lose faith in their community members. In addition, they give away their goals and dreams.

According to Karim, society is partly to be blamed in the case of burn victims. The members of society hold an inferior view of those women and do not show due respect to them. Karim suggests that the victims should achieve recovery through making friends with trusted and inspiring people that develop their personality in return.

Burn incidents have considerably decreased in Iraqi Kurdistan. 139 burn cases had been recorded in 2018, unfortunately 107 of the incidents were suicide attempts. In 2017, 202 burn incidents had been reported including 122 suicide attempts. The previous figures have been published by the Directorate of Fighting Violence against Women.

Shaima Jamal, the Director General of Women Union, claims that they have conducted regular seminars and meetings for raising awareness among burn victims especially those women who have been isolated from the society. She says the goal of the organization is to encourage the victims to integrate into their community again but they have not received any financial support.

Jamal informed Peregraf that the victims similarly received no aid in order to perform cosmetic surgeries. "This problem emerges from a multi-party system, no cooperation between the NGOs and it is clear that no organization is providing assistance to the victims", she says.