An
Afghan teenager who was horribly mutilated by her husband under Taliban
rule was all smiles as she unveiled her new prosthetic nose for the
first time. Aisha, 19, shocked the world when she appeared on the cover
of Time Magazine to lift the veil on the plight of many women in
Afghanistan.
Yesterday,
she bravely faced the public wearing a prosthetic nose - one that gives
her some idea of how she will look after having reconstructive surgery.
She went before the TV cameras to receive the Enduring Heart award at a
benefit for the Grossman Burn Foundation - the Los Angeles-based
organisation that paid for her surgery. She was given the award by
California first lady Maria Shriver.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger's wife told the audience: 'This is the first Enduring
Heart award given to a woman whose heart endures and who shows us all
what it means to have love and to be the enduring heart.' Aisha, whose
surname has not been revealed, replied: 'Thank you so much.'
When
Aisha was 12, her father promised her in marriage to a Taliban fighter
to pay a debt. She was handed over to his family who abused her and
forced her to sleep in the stable with the animals.
When
she attempted to flee, she was caught and her nose and ears were hacked
off by her husband as punishment. 'When they cut off my nose and ears, I
passed out.
In
the middle of the night it felt like there was cold water in my nose.
'I opened my eyes and I couldn't even see because of all the blood,' she
told CNN reporter Atia Abawi.
Left
for dead in the mountains, she crawled to her grandfather's house and
her father managed to get her to an American medical facility, where
medics cared for her for ten weeks. They then transported Aisha to a
secret shelter in Kabul and in August she was flown to the U.S. by the
Grossman Burn Foundation to stay with a host family.
This
month, she had a prosthetic nose fitted at the non-profit humanitarian
Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in California as part of her
eight-month rehabilitation. Dr Peter H Grossman said they hoped to give
Aisha a more 'permanent solution'.
This
could mean reconstructing her nose and ears using bone, tissue and
cartilage from other parts of her body. Dr Grossman's wife Rebecca, the
chair of the Grossman Burn Foundation, said Aisha was just one of the
thousands of women who are treated with appalling harshness.
She
said: 'Aisha is reminded of that enslavement every time she looks in
the mirror. But there are still times she can laugh. And at that moment
you see her teenage spirit escaping a body that has seen a lifetime of
injustice.'
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