With unsparing Time cover photo, mutilated Afghan woman becomes new emblem of war’s stakes
By APWednesday, August 4, 2010
On Time cover, Afghan woman symbolizes war stakes
NEW YORK — A Time magazine cover photo of a maimed Afghan woman is becoming a symbol of what’s at stake in the nearly decade-old U.S. war.
Since it went on newsstands Friday, the portrait of 18-year-old Aisha (eye-EE-shah) has been brandished before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on television and dissected in online commentary. It also has been extrapolated into a conversation-starter about violence against women and other topics.
Time and other accounts say Aisha’s nose and ears were sliced off last year under orders from a Taliban commander acting as a judge. It was her punishment for fleeing her husband’s home. She said she had run to escape her in-laws’ beatings and abuse.
She’s now in a women’s shelter and set to get reconstructive surgery in the U.S.
