World Press Photo is an international, independent organization which seeks to encourage professional photojournalism and to promote the unrestricted exchange of information. Each year, World Press Photo selects one photograph to become the Photo of the Year. The photograph of the year for 2010 was selected by the World Press Jury last week, and they selected this photograph of Bibi Aisha was taken by Jodi Bieber for a Time magazine article about Taliban cruelty toward Afghan women.
[Jodi Bieber, South Africa, Institute for Artist Management/Goodman Gallery for Time magazine]
The image graced the cover of a August 2010 Time magazine. After the magazine was printed, thousands of Time readers opposed the publishing of the photograph, calling it too brutal of an image to broadcast nationwide. Many believe that after the Taliban overthrow early last year, such crimes ceased to occur. Sadly it takes a picture of a beautiful woman with a gaping hole in the middle of her face plastered across a magazine cover to raise awareness about the continued Taliban brutality toward women.
The editor of Time admitted that the photograph was “powerful, shocking and disturbing,” but he also recognized the need to increase awareness of these secretive crimes.
The only thing more powerful than the image itself is the story behind it. Aisha, age 18, was mutilated by her husband. After Aisha ran away from the slave-like environment of her husband’s home, the Taliban demanded that she be punished so other girls in the village would not think it was appropriate to run away from their husbands. In the middle of the night, Taliban officials banged on the door of her home and dragged her up to a mountain, where her husband pulled out a knife and sliced off her ears and nose.
Although the men left Aisha for dead on the side of a mountain, she was found by the aid organization Women for Afghan Women, where she was given treatment and psychological help. She was eventually taken to America for counseling and reconstructive surgery.
In my opinion, if broadcasting images of the injuries that the Taliban have caused will raise awareness, then it is our duty to abused Afghan women to expose these secretive crimes and, hopefully, end such atrocities.
My gosh, how AWFUL that this kind of thing can go on!