Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Afghan Women Suffer Severely

According to reports, police in central Afghanistan are searching for a man who allegedly cut off part of his wife’s nose. “The husband cut his wife’s nose with a kitchen knife,” said the Provincial Crime Branch in Daykundi, adding that “Police transferred her to hospital. But her husband escaped from the area and is still at large.”

Zakia Rizai, the head of Daykundi’s Women’s Affairs Department, said that the woman had been the victim of severe domestic violence in the past.

“Her husband was a violent man,” she said. “We saw evidence that he had removed her fingernails. Once, she was kept locked inside a room without food or water for a week.”

Although such mutilation is rare in Afghanistan, reports of violence against women are increasing.

Last year, the case of a 30-year-old woman called Sitara was reported in Herat who spoke to reporters from her hospital bed.

Sitara’s husband wanted to divorce her so he could take their daughters and marry them off for a few thousand dollars for each girl’s virginity. But Sitara refused -- this protective mother adamant her children were not going to suffer the same fate as her. She’d reached her limit with his destructive drug use and the monster he’d turned into.

But she didn’t realize just how much of a monster he’d become. One night he demanded money and a simple ring she was wearing – the only jewelry she possessed. When Sitara said no, he bashed in her head until part of her brain was protruding from her skull. She was almost unconscious. He then pinned her down, got a knife and cut off her nose and upper lip.

The forms of the violence differ. Some women are being sexually abused in their work-place and others are tortured by their husbands. Over the past 12 months alone, over 500 such cases have been documented by the United Nations in this country. Most of the victims are still demanding justice. These incidents mostly happened in northern parts of Afghanistan. But it does not mean women in other regions are safe. The entire country is a dangerous place for women. But most women do not go to the police to complain against the culprits because of the traditional society that they are living in. Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission says that violence against women increased by 28 percent in 2013 alone compared to 2012. It is bad news, especially for women rights activists.

The situation also seems promising. Right after the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women once again were given freedom of education. There are now millions of girls and women who go to school and college. These women were deprived of education when the Taliban were in power. Afghanistan has a very conservative society. Most families especially in remote areas do not let their daughters go to school or work because they believe it is against their pride. Others also fear sexual harassment. So it is too hard to expect a big change in the lives of Afghan women if these problems persist.

There lie many cultural barriers for women in our society. An Afghan woman will have an honorable life when she lives without complaining about injustice at the hands of her husband. Often women are made to marry persons against their inner choices. A woman who keeps silent, despite hearing biting words, foul languages, mental and physical tortures, etc. is a woman of life in ideal Afghan culture.

It is observed in the lives of societies that when instability and disorder hit a country, the weaker people and strata within the society suffer the most. Afghan women form one of the same strata; not because they are weaker in their personalities but because they are treated in that manner by the society. They are kept away from social and politic lives and not given the authority to make important decisions in their families and even in their own lives.

Afghan social structure has been fervently dominated by religious extremism and tribal partiality. Most of the self-designed religious doctrines and tribal norms are against the women and discriminate their basic rights.

The fact is that that the traumatic actions done by men put their humanity under questions. It is so mind-boggling for one that how they have the heart of doing the cruelty in the worst possible way. How they dare shed the blood of humankind without a tinge of human feeling! How is it possible that the oozing blood of innocent human cannot touch them! No, one cannot believe that they are human. They are the bloodthirsty monsters who prey upon the blameless people.

It is worthy of mention that religion intends to guide mankind to the right path, to instill moral values in us, to quench one’s spiritual thirst for virtue, and to uproot cruelty and violence from human society. Whenever human societies were deep in vice, violence and immorality, and shrouded in the darkness of crime and corruption, the holy messengers of God emerged with a set of moral codes and religious compass to humanize the society and to guide human beings towards righteousness. Now, it is we to embrace the moral codes and religious guidelines so as to live a life empty of cruelties, violence, etc.