State Department's "Women of Courage" award in 2015, Capt. Rahmani had been a symbol of efforts to improve the situation of women in her country, more than a decade after the fall of the Taliban regime. Mohammad Radmanish, a defense ministry spokesman, said the government hoped that her request would be denied by U.S. authorities who have spent billions trying to build up Afghan security forces. "When an officer complains of insecurity and is afraid of security threats, then what should ordinary people do?" he said. "She has made an excuse for herself, but we have hundreds of educated women and female civil right activists who work and it is safe for them." Capt. Rahmani, who graduated from flight school in 2012 and qualified to fly C-208 military cargo aircraft, had been in the United States on a training course and had been due to return home on Saturday. In a conservative country notorious for the restrictions placed on women, Rahmani's story stood out as a rare example of a woman breaking through in areas normally reserved for men. Her success came at a price, however.
Six self-inflicted deaths each also were reported at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego and the California State Prison, Sacramento, she said. Experts blame the suicides in part on widely prevalent mental illness and inadequate suicide prevention measures. State officials say they are working to correct problems by expanding mental health treatment for inmates and training for correctional officers. ABSOLUTELY A CRISIS For several years in a row, the California Institution for Women the smaller of two state female prisons with 1,883 inmates did not have a single suicide, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation statistics show. During an 18-month period spanning 2014 and 2015, the suicide rate was eight times the national average for women prisoners and five times the rate for the entire California corrections system, state Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, said in a news release last summer. Many more female Chino inmates tried to take their lives and failed. Khokhobashvili said there have been 86 suicide attempts there in recent years: 15 in 2013, 18 in 2014, 32 in 2015 and 21 in 2016. Its completely heartbreaking, Leyva said by phone.
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