After regular beatings, torture and attempted murder by her husband, 35-year-old Zahra tried to burn herself to death to escape her marriage. Then she learned of a safer option: divorce.

"I did not spend a single happy day with my husband ... he was not like a human being. He used to beat me every day," she said, revealing scars on her right leg and feet where her husband had deliberately given her electric shocks.

Zahra is among a growing number of women in Afghanistan's western Herat province who, with the help of a women's charity, have taken on patriarchal laws to get a divorce, a taboo in the devoutly Muslim, formerly Taliban-led state.
 
After marrying at 14, Zahra, who declined to give her full name for her own safety, said she suffered years of abuse. Then a property dispute with her in-laws turned her marriage into a full-blown nightmare.
 
"They wanted to kill me three or four times. Once they gave me rat poison ... I cannot go out because of the divorce and my four brothers are looking for me; they are after me to kill me."
 
A man's law
Suraya Pakzad runs a safe house for women in Herat and has helped several women, including Zahra, divorce their husbands.
 
"In 2006 we had 98 cases of women killing themselves with fire ... in 2008, there was about 73 cases, so there has been a definite decrease," Pakzad said.
 
"When we brought the number of self-immolation cases down, automatically the number of divorces went up because women realised that they could not solve their problems by burning themselves," she said.
 
Under Afghanistan's Islamic law, a man can divorce without needing his wife's agreement. But if a woman seeks a divorce then she has to have the approval of her husband and needs witnesses who can testify in court that the divorce is justified.
 
"A man can, with great ease, tell the court that his wife's behaviour is inappropriate, that she does not behave in the home, and wants to divorce her. A man decides a woman's future with one piece of paper," said Maria Bashir, chief prosecutor in Herat.
 
A woman can appeal for a divorce on grounds that her husband is absent for a long time, he cannot adequately provide for the family, either financially or because he is physically incapable, or if he is impotent or abuses her to the point where her life may be at risk, Bashir said.
 
To get their husbands' agreement for the divorce, women were usually forced to let the husband and his family keep the children, a prospect that dissuaded many battered women.
 
"Women prefer death to the pain of being separated from their children ... This is why many women, before consulting the law, will resort to self-immolation, or suicide or running away."
 
Pakzad moved her office from Kabul to Herat, which is a much more conservative town compared with the capital, even though it is perhaps Afghanistan's most prosperous city due to greater security and flourishing trade with bordering countries.
 
"In Kabul, women's access to finance or the economy is much more limited compared with Herat, but they have much better access to freedom. The atmosphere is easier for women and more relaxed," Pakzad said.
 
"Afghan families think that a woman should not be divorced, whatever she goes through, she should be patient and put up with it. She should die before asking for a divorce," Pakzad said.
 
Pakzad links the women with one of five or six law firms in Herat which take on divorce cases. They are mostly defence lawyers and attend court with the woman who is also able to appeal her case if the ruling is unsatisfactory.
 
But the expense, difficulty of access to legal professionals and immense stigma the process brings ensures that most women will never take their cases to court because the burden of proof rests on their shoulders.
 
"Women know this and that's why they tend to put up with their problems," Pakzad said.
 
"We don't want to work against the law. We have an enemy in the Taliban and we don't want to create another enemy out of the government but the law needs to change and we need a parliamentary session on this to change it."