It was a seemingly ordinary night three years ago when Zahida Parveen, then 30, was asleep in a room with her two small children. Her family was poor, but she was happy with her life with Mehmood Iqbal, her husband of four years. All that changed in an instant when she was forced out of bed, viciously attacked and left for dead, her face mutilated beyond recognition. Her attacker: her 35 -year-old husband, who did it because he was convinced his wife was having an affair.

As awful as this incident sounds, it's even worse when you consider that it's not uncommon. Parveen lives in Pakistan, a country where such attacks on women - known as honor violence - take place too often. There's a saying in Pakistan that honor is like a person's nose. "If a person dishonors you, they say that person has cut off your nose," explains Riffat Hassan, Ph.D., a Pakistani-born Islamic theologian who teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "It's a metaphor, but in Pakistan people actually do it," Parveen is living proof of that. Today, with her husband n jail in Pakistan, Parveen agreed to give Glamour an exclusive interview and retell her tragic tale.

"Honor Violence" in Pakistan (FrontPage Magazine)
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9602

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Parveen's case is hopeful proof that Pakistan's views on honor violence are shifting. She's also proof of the human spirit's resilience. Dr. and Aseela Ashraf visited Parveen in her village in June, and neither could get over her transformation. "Previously," Dr. Ashraf says, "she had no self esteem and thought she was less than human. Now the entire village comes to visit!: If it was Iqbal's intent to shame Parveen along with brutally disfiguring her, he failed miserably. Astoundingly, since hearing of her return he has, according to Parveen, sent her messages looking to reconcile. She plans to respond to her husband's pleas with divorce papers as soon as they are in order. In the meantime, she wants to move forward. "It's more important that my suffering saves other women from this sort of thing in the future," she says. "Every time I hear about the birth of a female child, I worry about the powers working against her." She pauses a moment, then adds, "But at the same time, I know women can face anything. They have the strength.