By Kim Susan Se-jeong
Aesha Mohammadzai, 22, or Bibi Aisha, who was featured on the cover of Time magazine with her nose cut off, is now living a new life in the United States, reported Daily Mail, May 20.
Aesha had married into a Taliban family at the age of 12 due to her father’s debt. She was just 18 in 2009, when her nose and ears were cut off by her husband for running away from her marital home, unable to take his abuse.
She fainted from the pain after the punishment. When she came to, she crawled to her parents’ home. With their help, she was admitted to an American medical facility where she received treatment for 10 weeks.
“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,” she told Atia Abawi, CNN reporter. “I opened my eyes and I couldn't even see because of all the blood.”
She moved to America with the help of Women for Afghan Women, a human rights organization that found her a place to stay.
Following her escape from the traumatic experience, the teen had a prosthetic nose fitted at non-profit humanitarian Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in California. She may soon receive a facial reconstructive surgery from Dr. Peter H Grossman, using her own bone, tissue and cartilage to permanently fix her nose and ears.
Aesha was initially very sensitive and unstable due to the violence she had experienced, said the charity workers, who watched Aesha as she tried to fit into the new country. She would throw her body on the floor, bang her head against the ground, pull her own hair and bite her fingers.
“By the time she left, she was a different human being,” Ms. Hyneman, who Ayesha used to call “grandma,” told the CNN. “We’re all happy if she’s in the right place to further her development, but we miss her.”
According to U.N. reports on the Daily Mail, approximately 90 percent of Afghanistan women suffer from domestic abuse.