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Narayan Lakshman

Washington: Amid growing signs that negotiations would soon resume between the Taliban and the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan, a stark reminder of the Taliban's extreme views on women's rights resurfaced this week as Bibi Aisha (19), whose nose and ears had been cut off under Taliban sanction, proudly revealed a prosthetic nose in Los Angeles.

Ms. Aisha, whose controversial cover photograph in TIME magazine shocked audiences worldwide in July, travelled to the United States following her contact with TIME and, in addition to reconstructive surgery, this week she was also given the Enduring Heart award by the Grossman Burn Foundation, the charity that supported her treatment.

Maria Shriver, wife of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, presented the award to Ms. Aisha. When she was only 12 years old Ms. Aisha was said to have been promised in marriage to a Taliban fighter by her father and when she was 14, she was sent to live with him. In addition to being abused and treated harshly — she was “forced to sleep with the animals” — as punishment for fleeing, her husband and his brother were said to have attacked her and cut off her nose and ears as she was held down.

Attack

After the attack, which was said to have occurred “as other Taliban militants watched”, she said in an interview with CNN, “I passed out … In the middle of the night it felt like there was cold water in my nose…” which in fact was her own blood. There was “so much of it, [that] I couldn't even see…” she had said.

Left on a mountainside to die, she managed to reach her grandfather's home. From there she was taken to a U.S. military medical centre and finally brought to the U.S.