A dispatch from Heather Barr at Human Rights Watch:

The photo is shocking. A young woman – 20 years old – lies in a hospital bed, cradling her infant. Where her nose should be is instead a ragged bandage. Her eyes gaze out from over the bandage, looking far away and numb.

EXPAND © HASAN SIRDASH/AFP/Getty Images

This is Raiza Gul. She married at age 15, in Afghanistan’s north, to a man named Muhammad Khan, the same man who Raiza Gul said tied her hands and cut off her nose with a pocket knife.

This horrific act, only the latest in a series of abuses throughout the couple’s marriage, was reportedly prompted by arguments over Khan’s recent engagement to

Heather Barr at Human Rights Watch reports:

It’s a scene we associate with the Taliban. A woman covered head to toe in a flowing veil, huddled on the ground before a man in a turban. His right arm is raised, in motion, holding a lash, a second away from bringing it down on her. An audience of men – only men – sit in a circle around them. They have chairs – a nod to their comfort while they watch what may be intended as a cautionary lesson, or spectacle.

This is not the Taliban. This photo emerged on September 1, and reportedly shows the lashing of a woman named Zarmina, 22, who was arrested with a man named