Burned Alive

Product Description

When Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her village as in so many others sex before marriage was considered a grave dishonour to ones family & was punishable by death. This was her crime. Her brother-in-law was given the task of arranging her punishment. One morning while Souad was washing the familys clothes he crept up on her poured petrol over her & set her alight. In the eyes of their community he was a hero. An execution for a crime of honour was a respectable duty unlikely to bring about condemnation from others. It certainly would not have provoked calls for his prosecution. More than five thousand cases of such honour killings are reported around the world each year & many more take place that we hear nothing about Miraculously Souad survived rescued by the women of her village who put out the flames & took her to a local hospital. Horrifically burned & abandoned by her family & community it was only the intervention of a European aid worker that enabled Souad to receive the care & sanctuary she so desperately needed & to start her life again. She has now decided to tell her story & uncover the barbarity of honour killings a practice which continues to this day Burned Alive is a shocking testimony a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty. It speaks of amazing courage & fortitude & of one womans determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices & which ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence