Burned Alive

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 one's family and 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 family's clothes, he crept up on her, poured petrol over her and 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. More than 5000 cases of such honour killings are reported around the world each year and many more go unreported. Miraculously, Souad survived rescued by the women of her village, who put out the flames and took her to a local hospital. Burned Alive is a shocking testimony, a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty. It speaks of amazing courage and fortitude and of one woman's determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices and which ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence.