Eurasia Insight
May 28

On a winter day over two years ago, Marhabo Tangerova carried an oil lamp into the courtyard of her family compound in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, poured its cold kerosene down her body and struck a match. Like many severely depressed young women in Central Asia, Tangerova believed suicide to be the only escape from a dysfunctional home life.

Tangerova survived the episode, but she required hospitalization for five months to recover from the burns. "At that time, at that moment, there was no other way," Tangerova said recently. As she spoke, she raised her hands from her lap and her blue sweater inched back slightly, revealing the scars on her wrists.

After recovering from her burns in 2001, Tangerova did not return to her family. Instead, she joined roughly a dozen other women at the Umid Center, a unique initiative in Uzbekistan that strives to turn the lives of depressed young women around. Headed by Dr. Bibisora Oripova, a plucky 56-year-old burn specialist, the organization has cobbled together several small grants, including one from the Soros Foundation-Uzbekistan. It now operates seven offices and three shelters across the country with a $15,000 annual budget.

According to Oripova, the difficulties faced by women in Uzbekistan drive an alarming number to consider drastic measures, including self-immolation. Prevention efforts today are complicated by the fact that during the Soviet era such social issues were largely ignored.

"No one wanted to talk about it then," says Dr. Oripova, who has worked as a burn specialist since 1971. "In the Soviet Union we were always supposed to talk about how big the cotton harvests were, how many new cars were on the roads--negative news was not accepted."

Kamilzhon Ashurov, a member of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, says government figures for the Samarkand Region show that 17 of the 205 suicides in the first half of 2002, the most recent period for which statistics are available, involved self-immolation. "The real figures, I am sure, are much higher," he said.

Oripova says many women who survive suicide attempts end up being rejected by their husbands and their own parents, leaving them with few options. This increases the likelihood of a second attempt.

"I tried to help them, to find them a place to stay," Oripova says. "But I did this work alone, there was no formal organization to take care of these young women."

In 1998 she managed to establish the Umid center to help self-immolation survivors and victims of domestic violence. Umid, which in Uzbek means "hope," attempts to get women back on their feet through a combination of psychotherapy and training in revenue generating skills -- including carpet weaving, computer literacy and childcare instruction.

In addition, Umid strives to reach out to troubled women who may be at risk of a suicide attempt. Umid's branch office in Samarkand conducts four to five seminars in outlying villages each month, attracting 50 to 60 women to each meeting, Oripova says.

"We used to have problems getting permission from the village councils to hold our meetings," Oripova says, her dark brown eyes flashing. "They thought we were preparing women to rebel against the government. Now politicians are beginning to understand that women need to know their rights. Sometimes they even invite us."

Today, most women who attempt suicide come from rural areas, where educational and economic opportunities for them are limited, Oripova said.

Tangerova is a typical example. She left school after 10th grade. At 17, her parents arranged for her to marry a 22-year old from the village and she went to live with his family. Eventually, domestic disputes erupted within the household, and Tangerova found herself isolated and blamed for creating problems.

"They didn't just criticize me," Tangerova recalls, her eyes welling with tears. "They would beat me--even my sister-in-law would hit me with a bottle."

Deep conflicts with the mother-in-law are usually present in such instances, Oripova says, adding that in many cases husbands side with their mothers over their wives. "We have a saying here: I can find another wife, but I can't find another mother," Oripova says.

Attempts at self-immolation are found across Central Asia. In Tajikistan, for example, the Asia-Plus news agency reported that women were more likely to attempt suicide than men in the northern Soghd region. Of the 52 reported suicide attempts reported during the first quarter of 2003, 33 were made by individuals under age 30. Two of the attempts involved self-immolation.

Young women such as Tangerova often find themselves in a complex legal predicament following self-immolation attempts. Police and relatives cajoled her into saying that she burned herself accidentally in the gas oven. As a result, no formal police investigation occurred at the time of the incident.

"This is a common problem," said Ashurov, the human rights activists. "The police want to close these cases quickly, and so they encourage the women to say their burns are accidental."

With the help of an Umid lawyer, Tangerova convinced prosecutors to revisit her case. Ultimately, a local court ruled in April that her husband must purchase an apartment for her in Samarkand. And, while her son and daughter stay with TangerovaЎЇs mother in Chelak, she is trying to prepare for the future.

"If I can get some financial support, I hope to open a small cafЁ¦, or maybe a shop," Tangerova says resolutely.

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