One woman’s harrowing story of domestic violence and divorce in Afghanistan

A woman's lot: Many Afghan women in rural areas do not have an identification card, or tazkera. To obtain a tazkera, a woman needs consent from her husband or father, which can be problematic in cases of domestic abuse. Photo: AFP

Seventeen months after Setara’s husband cut her face and chest with a knife, disfiguring her for life and only narrowly failing to kill her, the laws of her native Afghanistan have still not allowed her to divorce him.

The reason is not because anyone disputes what happened to her.