WOMEN PROBLEM IN AFGHANISTAN
Mariam was 11 in 2003 when her parents forced her to marry a blind, 41-year-old cleric. The bride price of $1,200 helped Mariam's father, a drug addict, pay off a debt.
This example of a girl in Afghanistan gives us the idea of the value of women and girls all over Afghanistan. But this story is incomplete. The whole story is more dangerous than its introduction. The story goes like this –
Mariam was taken to live with her new husband and his mother, who, she says, treated her like a servant. They began to beat her when she failed to conceive a child. After two years of abuse, she fled and sought help at a police station in Kabul.
Until only a few years ago, the Afghan police would probably have rewarded Mariam for her courage by throwing her in jail — traditional mores forbid women to be alone on the street — or returning her to her husband.
Instead, the police delivered her to a plain, two-story building in a residential neighborhood: a women's shelter, something that was unknown here before 2003.
The way Mariam was treated by her in-laws after her marriage was a quit common treatment for girls whose parents marry off them early for their own selfish reason. Mostly girls and women are treated like animals in Afghanistan.
WHERE DID THE PROBLEM START FROM ?
Afghanistan is a country of approximately 23 million which, after three years of severe drought, 23 years of war and devastation and five years under the Taliban authorities, has been left as one of the poorest countries in the world. Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Even before the Taliban came to power, Afghanistan had high maternal and child mortality rates and a very low literacy rate for women. But women participated economically, socially and politically in the life of their societies. Women helped to draft the 1964 Constitution. In the 1970s, there were at least three women legislators in the Parliament. Up to the early 1990s, women were teachers, government workers and medical doctors. They worked as professors, lawyers, judges, journalists, writers and poets.
After the Taliban's rise to power, women and girls were systematically discriminated against and marginalized, and their human rights were violated. This resulted in the deteriorating economic and social conditions of women and girls in all areas of the country, in particular in areas under Taliban control. Women and girls continued to be severely restricted in their access to education, health care facilities and employment. During the Taliban's rule, only about 3 per cent of girls received some form of primary education. The ban on women's employment also affected boys education, as the majority of teachers had been women. Poor health conditions and malnutrition made pregnancy and childbirth exceptionally dangerous for Afghan women.
The Taliban's policies also severely limited women's freedom of movement. Women could travel only when accompanied by a male relative, which put a particular strain on female-headed households and widows. In May 2001, a decree was issued by the Taliban, banning women from driving cars, which further limited their activities. The resulting seclusion of women to the home constituted a form of solitary confinement and also created obstacles to women meeting with each other. Women were harassed and beaten by the Taliban if their public appearance was perceived to be in contradiction with Taliban edicts. Women's removal from the public space also meant that women could not play any role in the political process and were excluded from all forms of formal or informal governance. Afghan women suffered domestic and other types of violence for the past 25 years, not just under the Taliban regime.
One of the recent story by one author on Afghanistan women in Now Public mentioned this -
{ During the rule of Amanullah in the 1920s there was an attempt at an Ataturk style campaign of social reform. In regards to women, Amanullah intended to encourage women's education, loosen the rules of purdah, allow western style dress in Kabul, introduce a minimum age for marriage and eliminate polygamy for government employees. And most shocking of all, Queen Soraya was photographed in a scandalous state of undress (sleeveless!).
This of led to an angry population eliminating Amanullah. Well, the Pashtun Shinwari tribe rebelled and took Jalalabad, which was followed by a Tajik by the name of Habibullah (AKA "the water carrier's son") capturing Kabul. In a panic, Amanullah jumped in his Rolls Royce and escaped Indiana Jones-style with Kohistani horsemen pursuing close behind his car. But did all this resistance arise from his attempts at women's social reforms? Not really. I would advise reading Leon Poullada's book "Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929." (Cornell University Press, 1973). In this book you will get a sense of the full range of policy changes (primarily economic and power structure changes) that angered the local power elite. An increase in land taxes is what actually caused the first incident of rebellion. I have no survey data from late 1928 but I'm quite confident that the battle cry was not "No to women's rights!"
What am I getting at? Educating women is not going to cause a revolt against the Karzai government. Women driving cars in Kabul is not going to lead to a riot. Nobody attacks NATO soldiers in order to keep their women in purdah. The whole alleged controversy over women's rights is just a peripheral add-on for militants. Their core grievances lay elsewhere. (It's the "because they hate our freedom" argument extrapolated onto Afghanistan) So if you are a journalist, maybe you should quit writing that Afghans are being angered over a forced
imposition of women's rights. Maybe a small minority is, but don't present this argument as a uniform social fact.}
This piece of story makes us aware of how sometimes there are misinterpretations of news in Afghanistan and from where the problem starts from.
"Women's problems are not only men. Human rights organisations only talk about women having a problem only between the men in their lives — it's not true. Because men are not a problem in Afghanistan," Sultana Waizi, gender trainer, Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (Dacaar) told Gulf Newsfrom its Kabul headquarters.
?he situation of women in Afghanistan has improved significantly ?ver the last decade, but there is still much to be done in terms of education and their involvement in the political and socio-cultural life.
One of the achievements is that they already have identity cards, which was unthinkable previously. They can go to school and even half of the university students are women, reported the journalist Asadula Shafay for the BBC.
The following experience of a women gives us a more clear view of the recent conditions of women in Afghanistan.
IN THE NEWS
Women's Biggest Problems in Afghanistan
January 27, 2010
By Najla Ayubi
"I operate daily under extremely dangerous situations in the south and southwest regions of Afghanistan, especially in Helmand Province. While there, I am expected to be completely covered in a Burqa and am advised to not carry a women's style handbag or laptop bag. My phone should be
off so that it is never heard ringing. Shaking hands with men is a taboo
and talking directly about women's rights could be punishable by death. However, the secret behind my success is that I am educated and have established contacts with local elders – and I abide by all these conditions. This is why I am able to run my development projects successfully," said an Afghan woman who recently spoke to me on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
Under the Taliban's regime, women endured unspeakably harsh conditions and were deprived of basic rights. After the Taliban were overthrown in late 2001, the hope and optimism of Afghan women was revived with a new presence of the international community and international forces, and budding support for women's participation in social, economical, and cultural aspects of life.
Despite impressive efforts made since 2001, and some significant strides in education, in many ways things remain extremely difficult for women. While some things are better, old problems persist and new problems have presented themselves.
These problems are interconnected and have reciprocal effect on each other – making lasting solutions even more difficult.
Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, a more egalitarian notion of women's rights has begun to take hold, founded in the country's new Constitution and promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women Affairs and a small community of women's advocates.
The problems they are confronting are deeply ingrained in a culture that has been mainly governed by tribal law. But they are changing the lives of young women like Mariam, now 17. Still wary of social stigma, she did not want her full name used.
"Simply put, this is a patriarchal society," said Manizha Naderi, director of Women for Afghan Women, one of four organizations that run shelters in Afghanistan. "Women are the property of men. This is tradition."
Forced marriages involving girls have been part of the social compacts between tribes and families for centuries, and they continue, though the legal marrying age is now 16 for women and 18 for men. Beating, torture and trafficking of women remain common and are broadly accepted, women's advocates say.
Until the advent of the shelters, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had nowhere to turn. If she tried to seek refuge with her own family, her brothers or father might return her to her husband, to protect the family's honor. Women who eloped might be cast out of the family altogether.Many women resort to suicide, some by self-immolation, to escape their misery, according to Afghan and international human rights advocates.
"There is a culture of silence," said Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan women skills development centre, which opened the first women's shelter in Afghanistan six years ago. The majority of abuse victims, she said, are too ashamed to report their problems.
As recently as 2005, some Afghan social organizations did not publicly acknowledge that they were working in support of women's rights, said Nabila Wafez, project manager in Afghanistan for the women's rights division of MedicaMondiale, a German nongovernmental organization that supports women and children in conflict zones.
"Women's rights was a very new word for them," Ms. Wafez said. "But now we're openly saying it."
Women's advocates insist that they are trying not to split up families, but rather to keep them together through intervention, mediation and counseling.
"Our aim is not to put women in the shelter if it's not necessary," said Ms. Naderi, who was born in Afghanistan but grew up in New York City and graduated from Hunter college. "Only in cases where it's dangerous for the women to go back home, that's when we put them in the shelter."
If mediation fails, Ms. Naderi said, her organization's lawyers will pursue a divorce on behalf of their clients. Cases involving criminal allegations are referred to the attorney general's office.
Ms. Naderi's organization has even taken the bold step of helping several clients find new husbands, carefully vetted by the shelter's staff. The men could not afford the customary bride price, making them more accommodating of women who deviated from tradition.
MARIAM'S CASE
When Mariam arrived at the women for afghan women shelter in 2007, the group's lawyers took her case to family court. Her husband pleaded for her return, promising not to beat her again. Mariam consented. In a recent interview, Mariam, a waifish teenager with a meek voice, said she had feared that "no one would marry me again." But soon after her return, the beatings resumed, she said. She fled again. Mariam's case was moved to criminal court because she said her husband had threatened to kill her, said Mariam Ahadi, the legal supervisor for Women for Afghan Women and a former federal prosecutor in Afghanistan.At the shelters, others told still more harrowing tales. For the same reason as Mariam, none wanted their full names used.
Nadia, 17, who has been living in Ms. Akrami's long-term shelter since 2007, recounted that to avenge a dispute he had with her father, her husband cut off her nose and an ear while she was sleeping. She has undergone six operations and needs more, Ms. Akrami said.
"I don't know anything about happiness," Nadia said.
At 8, another girl, Gulsum, was kidnapped by her father, who was estranged from her mother. She says she was forced to marry the son of her father's lover. Her husband and her new mother-in-law beat her and threatened to kill her, she said. Now 13, Gulsum said that before eventually escaping, she tried to commit suicide by swallowing medicine and rodent poison.
Advocates say governmental response to the issue has significantly improved since the overthrow of the Taliban. Judges are ruling more equitably, advocates say, and the national police have created a special unit to focus on family issues. But women's advocates say that even so, protections for women remain mostly theoretical in much of the country, particularly in rural areas, where tradition runs deepest and women have limited access to advocacy services and courts.
Mariam said she felt fortunate to have found refuge. Asked what she hoped for the future, she replied, "I want my divorce, and then I want to study." She was pulled out of school in the fourth grade. Turning to Ms. Ahadi, she added, "I want to be a lawyer like her."
But for all of Mariam's suffering, her family apparently has not changed. Her younger sister was married off a year ago, at age 9, in exchange for a $400 bride price that helped cover another drug debt, Mariam said, and her youngest sister, who is 6, appears to be heading toward a similar fate
OTHER PROBLEMS
Women are sometimes refused access to doctors in Afghanistan because of cultural sensitivities where the doctor is a man. It is seen as shameful for a woman to be "seen" by a male doctor, particularly with medical matters relating to gynaecology, such as childbirth.
A 2010 Study of Gender Equity through the National Solidarity Programme's Community Development Councils, implemented by Dacaar, highlighted this problem. A woman from the Parwan province, interviewed for the study, explains in her own words: "In the beginning our husbands put a lot of restrictions on us but now they cooperate with us and advise me. When I was pregnant for the first time I almost died, but my father-in-law didn't let me go to the doctor and said, ‘It is not necessary that we give the doctor an opportunity to enjoy himself just to keep you alive.'"
According to Unicef statistics (2003-2008), 14 per cent of women had a skilled attendant at their child's delivery, while 13 per cent of women had an institutional delivery.
Without safety, however, improvements for Afghan women are remote. The international community must work alongside the Afghan government to restore security, especially for women and girls so that they can gain greater access to education and play a larger role in stabilizing their country.
Mariam was 11 in 2003 when her parents forced her to marry a blind, 41-year-old cleric. The bride price of $1,200 helped Mariam's father, a drug addict, pay off a debt.
This example of a girl in Afghanistan gives us the idea of the value of women and girls all over Afghanistan. But this story is incomplete. The whole story is more dangerous than its introduction. The story goes like this –
Mariam was taken to live with her new husband and his mother, who, she says, treated her like a servant. They began to beat her when she failed to conceive a child. After two years of abuse, she fled and sought help at a police station in Kabul.
Until only a few years ago, the Afghan police would probably have rewarded Mariam for her courage by throwing her in jail — traditional mores forbid women to be alone on the street — or returning her to her husband.
Instead, the police delivered her to a plain, two-story building in a residential neighborhood: a women's shelter, something that was unknown here before 2003.
The way Mariam was treated by her in-laws after her marriage was a quit common treatment for girls whose parents marry off them early for their own selfish reason. Mostly girls and women are treated like animals in Afghanistan.
WHERE DID THE PROBLEM START FROM ?
Afghanistan is a country of approximately 23 million which, after three years of severe drought, 23 years of war and devastation and five years under the Taliban authorities, has been left as one of the poorest countries in the world. Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Even before the Taliban came to power, Afghanistan had high maternal and child mortality rates and a very low literacy rate for women. But women participated economically, socially and politically in the life of their societies. Women helped to draft the 1964 Constitution. In the 1970s, there were at least three women legislators in the Parliament. Up to the early 1990s, women were teachers, government workers and medical doctors. They worked as professors, lawyers, judges, journalists, writers and poets.
After the Taliban's rise to power, women and girls were systematically discriminated against and marginalized, and their human rights were violated. This resulted in the deteriorating economic and social conditions of women and girls in all areas of the country, in particular in areas under Taliban control. Women and girls continued to be severely restricted in their access to education, health care facilities and employment. During the Taliban's rule, only about 3 per cent of girls received some form of primary education. The ban on women's employment also affected boys education, as the majority of teachers had been women. Poor health conditions and malnutrition made pregnancy and childbirth exceptionally dangerous for Afghan women.
The Taliban's policies also severely limited women's freedom of movement. Women could travel only when accompanied by a male relative, which put a particular strain on female-headed households and widows. In May 2001, a decree was issued by the Taliban, banning women from driving cars, which further limited their activities. The resulting seclusion of women to the home constituted a form of solitary confinement and also created obstacles to women meeting with each other. Women were harassed and beaten by the Taliban if their public appearance was perceived to be in contradiction with Taliban edicts. Women's removal from the public space also meant that women could not play any role in the political process and were excluded from all forms of formal or informal governance. Afghan women suffered domestic and other types of violence for the past 25 years, not just under the Taliban regime.
One of the recent story by one author on Afghanistan women in Now Public mentioned this -
{ During the rule of Amanullah in the 1920s there was an attempt at an Ataturk style campaign of social reform. In regards to women, Amanullah intended to encourage women's education, loosen the rules of purdah, allow western style dress in Kabul, introduce a minimum age for marriage and eliminate polygamy for government employees. And most shocking of all, Queen Soraya was photographed in a scandalous state of undress (sleeveless!).
This of led to an angry population eliminating Amanullah. Well, the Pashtun Shinwari tribe rebelled and took Jalalabad, which was followed by a Tajik by the name of Habibullah (AKA "the water carrier's son") capturing Kabul. In a panic, Amanullah jumped in his Rolls Royce and escaped Indiana Jones-style with Kohistani horsemen pursuing close behind his car. But did all this resistance arise from his attempts at women's social reforms? Not really. I would advise reading Leon Poullada's book "Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929." (Cornell University Press, 1973). In this book you will get a sense of the full range of policy changes (primarily economic and power structure changes) that angered the local power elite. An increase in land taxes is what actually caused the first incident of rebellion. I have no survey data from late 1928 but I'm quite confident that the battle cry was not "No to women's rights!"
What am I getting at? Educating women is not going to cause a revolt against the Karzai government. Women driving cars in Kabul is not going to lead to a riot. Nobody attacks NATO soldiers in order to keep their women in purdah. The whole alleged controversy over women's rights is just a peripheral add-on for militants. Their core grievances lay elsewhere. (It's the "because they hate our freedom" argument extrapolated onto Afghanistan) So if you are a journalist, maybe you should quit writing that Afghans are being angered over a forced
imposition of women's rights. Maybe a small minority is, but don't present this argument as a uniform social fact.}
This piece of story makes us aware of how sometimes there are misinterpretations of news in Afghanistan and from where the problem starts from.
"Women's problems are not only men. Human rights organisations only talk about women having a problem only between the men in their lives — it's not true. Because men are not a problem in Afghanistan," Sultana Waizi, gender trainer, Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (Dacaar) told Gulf Newsfrom its Kabul headquarters.
?he situation of women in Afghanistan has improved significantly ?ver the last decade, but there is still much to be done in terms of education and their involvement in the political and socio-cultural life.
One of the achievements is that they already have identity cards, which was unthinkable previously. They can go to school and even half of the university students are women, reported the journalist Asadula Shafay for the BBC.
The following experience of a women gives us a more clear view of the recent conditions of women in Afghanistan.
IN THE NEWS
Women's Biggest Problems in Afghanistan
January 27, 2010
By Najla Ayubi
"I operate daily under extremely dangerous situations in the south and southwest regions of Afghanistan, especially in Helmand Province. While there, I am expected to be completely covered in a Burqa and am advised to not carry a women's style handbag or laptop bag. My phone should be
off so that it is never heard ringing. Shaking hands with men is a taboo
and talking directly about women's rights could be punishable by death. However, the secret behind my success is that I am educated and have established contacts with local elders – and I abide by all these conditions. This is why I am able to run my development projects successfully," said an Afghan woman who recently spoke to me on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
Under the Taliban's regime, women endured unspeakably harsh conditions and were deprived of basic rights. After the Taliban were overthrown in late 2001, the hope and optimism of Afghan women was revived with a new presence of the international community and international forces, and budding support for women's participation in social, economical, and cultural aspects of life.
Despite impressive efforts made since 2001, and some significant strides in education, in many ways things remain extremely difficult for women. While some things are better, old problems persist and new problems have presented themselves.
These problems are interconnected and have reciprocal effect on each other – making lasting solutions even more difficult.
Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, a more egalitarian notion of women's rights has begun to take hold, founded in the country's new Constitution and promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women Affairs and a small community of women's advocates.
The problems they are confronting are deeply ingrained in a culture that has been mainly governed by tribal law. But they are changing the lives of young women like Mariam, now 17. Still wary of social stigma, she did not want her full name used.
"Simply put, this is a patriarchal society," said Manizha Naderi, director of Women for Afghan Women, one of four organizations that run shelters in Afghanistan. "Women are the property of men. This is tradition."
Forced marriages involving girls have been part of the social compacts between tribes and families for centuries, and they continue, though the legal marrying age is now 16 for women and 18 for men. Beating, torture and trafficking of women remain common and are broadly accepted, women's advocates say.
Until the advent of the shelters, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had nowhere to turn. If she tried to seek refuge with her own family, her brothers or father might return her to her husband, to protect the family's honor. Women who eloped might be cast out of the family altogether.Many women resort to suicide, some by self-immolation, to escape their misery, according to Afghan and international human rights advocates.
"There is a culture of silence," said Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan women skills development centre, which opened the first women's shelter in Afghanistan six years ago. The majority of abuse victims, she said, are too ashamed to report their problems.
As recently as 2005, some Afghan social organizations did not publicly acknowledge that they were working in support of women's rights, said Nabila Wafez, project manager in Afghanistan for the women's rights division of MedicaMondiale, a German nongovernmental organization that supports women and children in conflict zones.
"Women's rights was a very new word for them," Ms. Wafez said. "But now we're openly saying it."
Women's advocates insist that they are trying not to split up families, but rather to keep them together through intervention, mediation and counseling.
"Our aim is not to put women in the shelter if it's not necessary," said Ms. Naderi, who was born in Afghanistan but grew up in New York City and graduated from Hunter college. "Only in cases where it's dangerous for the women to go back home, that's when we put them in the shelter."
If mediation fails, Ms. Naderi said, her organization's lawyers will pursue a divorce on behalf of their clients. Cases involving criminal allegations are referred to the attorney general's office.
Ms. Naderi's organization has even taken the bold step of helping several clients find new husbands, carefully vetted by the shelter's staff. The men could not afford the customary bride price, making them more accommodating of women who deviated from tradition.
MARIAM'S CASE
When Mariam arrived at the women for afghan women shelter in 2007, the group's lawyers took her case to family court. Her husband pleaded for her return, promising not to beat her again. Mariam consented. In a recent interview, Mariam, a waifish teenager with a meek voice, said she had feared that "no one would marry me again." But soon after her return, the beatings resumed, she said. She fled again. Mariam's case was moved to criminal court because she said her husband had threatened to kill her, said Mariam Ahadi, the legal supervisor for Women for Afghan Women and a former federal prosecutor in Afghanistan.At the shelters, others told still more harrowing tales. For the same reason as Mariam, none wanted their full names used.
Nadia, 17, who has been living in Ms. Akrami's long-term shelter since 2007, recounted that to avenge a dispute he had with her father, her husband cut off her nose and an ear while she was sleeping. She has undergone six operations and needs more, Ms. Akrami said.
"I don't know anything about happiness," Nadia said.
At 8, another girl, Gulsum, was kidnapped by her father, who was estranged from her mother. She says she was forced to marry the son of her father's lover. Her husband and her new mother-in-law beat her and threatened to kill her, she said. Now 13, Gulsum said that before eventually escaping, she tried to commit suicide by swallowing medicine and rodent poison.
Advocates say governmental response to the issue has significantly improved since the overthrow of the Taliban. Judges are ruling more equitably, advocates say, and the national police have created a special unit to focus on family issues. But women's advocates say that even so, protections for women remain mostly theoretical in much of the country, particularly in rural areas, where tradition runs deepest and women have limited access to advocacy services and courts.
Mariam said she felt fortunate to have found refuge. Asked what she hoped for the future, she replied, "I want my divorce, and then I want to study." She was pulled out of school in the fourth grade. Turning to Ms. Ahadi, she added, "I want to be a lawyer like her."
But for all of Mariam's suffering, her family apparently has not changed. Her younger sister was married off a year ago, at age 9, in exchange for a $400 bride price that helped cover another drug debt, Mariam said, and her youngest sister, who is 6, appears to be heading toward a similar fate
OTHER PROBLEMS
Women are sometimes refused access to doctors in Afghanistan because of cultural sensitivities where the doctor is a man. It is seen as shameful for a woman to be "seen" by a male doctor, particularly with medical matters relating to gynaecology, such as childbirth.
A 2010 Study of Gender Equity through the National Solidarity Programme's Community Development Councils, implemented by Dacaar, highlighted this problem. A woman from the Parwan province, interviewed for the study, explains in her own words: "In the beginning our husbands put a lot of restrictions on us but now they cooperate with us and advise me. When I was pregnant for the first time I almost died, but my father-in-law didn't let me go to the doctor and said, ‘It is not necessary that we give the doctor an opportunity to enjoy himself just to keep you alive.'"
According to Unicef statistics (2003-2008), 14 per cent of women had a skilled attendant at their child's delivery, while 13 per cent of women had an institutional delivery.
Without safety, however, improvements for Afghan women are remote. The international community must work alongside the Afghan government to restore security, especially for women and girls so that they can gain greater access to education and play a larger role in stabilizing their country.
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