Women’s Day was celebrated with fanfare in NGO-laden Kabul. For me, however, it just highlighted exactly how bad the situation is for Afghanistan’s women.
Afghan customs and traditions are shaped by men, most of whom think of women as pieces of property. Having a beautiful daughter is a blessing much like a cow that milks well — you can get a lot of money for it. Exchanging or selling women or young girls remains a customary method of resolving disputes or satisfying debts. In other words, if a man kills someone or racks up a gambling debt, he will go unpunished while his virgin sisters will be given to the victim’s family or to the guy who lent the money.
Rape and domestic violence against women are common in Afghanistan. To make matters worse, there is no chance of retribution for the women, because the court system is largely nonexistent and the village elders create “justice” using Islamic or customary law -- which in rape cases require that a woman produce multiple witnesses to the crime. By being raped, a woman also brings great shame on the family. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission recently reported a case in which a girl who had been raped by her brother was set on fire -- by her own parents -- in order to save the family’s reputation.
Most marriages here are arranged, many are forced. Some daughters of poor families are made at age six or seven to marry men several decades older. Even young boys are sometimes married off into sexual slavery at the filthy hands of commanders and warlords known as bachabazi -- “one who plays with boys”. In the West we call both of those practices paedophilia, and it is considered a mental illness. Here, they call it custom. The custom of men.
I cannot claim to know Afghan women, not even the ones I work with. They are shy and quiet around the office, and they are not allowed out on nights and weekends. They stop working when they get engaged, because nobody wants to marry a woman who spends her days around men. In some families, women never leave the house. Ever. When I visit someone’s home, I am instructed to eat with the men in the sitting room; only occasionally am I invited to the kitchen to thank the women for cooking.
In 2006, there were 106 reported cases of self-immolation -- women setting themselves on fire -- in Afghanistan. I suspect that the number of actual suicides among women is much higher.
I used to scoff at feminists, but not here. On the whole, Afghan men make me sick. With exceptions, of course, but those men remain just that -- exceptions.
