A shocking report once again found widespread coverage in the media as well as social networks. The ferocious and severe torture once again pulled the issue of women rights to the top of oft-repeated topic of hard talk. Manizha is a 20-year old woman from Moqor area of southern Ghazni province who revealed to BBC how she was constantly tortured by her husband.
She was kept in the basement of her home for weeks with her hands and feet tied up. Her husband would beat her with sticks, chains, and even a whip. Manizha's half-dead body tells her sad tale. "They punched and kicked me on my face. They tied my hands with a rope and beat me with chains, sticks and a whip. I spent days and weeks in the basement of the house with my hands and feet tied up. They forced me to work in the cold and snow."
She added, "There is no part of my body which is not injured. The nails of my hands have fallen, and my feet don't have the strength to move." Thanks to revolutionary media development and increasing availability of internet through which sounds of victims like Manizha get published and security officials come under pressure to follow such cases.
As in her case, her husband was arrested on direct command of Interior Minister.
It is unfortunate to note that with each passing year, cases of violence against women registered by Ministry of Women Affairs have also increased. On the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Ministry of Women Affairs announced that it had registered 3500 cases of violence against women during later half of last year.
No doubt, on frequent bases reports are released about barbaric and inhuman violence against women which sends shock down everyone's spine. Earlier last year, a heart-wrenching picture of a girl named Sahar Gul shocked people. She was imprisoned for six months and tortured inhumanly by her husband's family.
Indeed, Baghlan Province has become highly famous due to rising violence against women. It is not clear that whether the level of violence has increased or whether due to the so-called press revolution, they find way into publicity. Anyhow, people, particularly women rights activists, are worried that simultaneous to foreign military withdrawal and declining financial assistance to the country, government, human rights institutions, civil activists, and government may get weaker and may be unable to protect women's rights.
From a weaker government, authorities get forced to compromise on various issues, particularly women's rights. The concept of Taliban and their approach towards women accelerate the nightmarish prospective. People maintain that Taliban have not changed an inch and they will, if they return to power, impose the same radical and restrictive interpretation of Shariah laws.
However, efforts have been made to change the general concept of common people from Taliban and Taliban regime through innovating new terms and playing with words and terms. Analyzing media, it is not very complicated to understand that how terms that signal friendship and fraternity have largely poked in and become the daily dish of media and newspapers.
During past few years, many have tried to challenge the notion that people have from rebellions and insurgency. The question that who is Taliban largely circulates among Afghan people? Terms like good Taliban and bad Taliban, puppet and real Afghan Taliban, radical and moderate Taliban are familiar to each and every person. Previously, people had a definite and clear answer to the question. They do not anymore.
The concept that who are Taliban is somehow distorted as there are people who challenge that notion. Questions are put like this, "Who are Taliban? Are they still those who established Emarat Islami? Are they students graduated from Maddressah?" No doubt, there is huge number students graduated from Afghan and Pakistani religious Madressah, but they are not linked to any insurgent groups fighting foreign and Afghan armies. They also maintain that Taliban are not those who actually established Emirate.
They might not prevent girls going to school if they are provided the chance to occupy a post in the government. There are also other definitions like Taliban consist of various groups that do not share a common ideology. Instead what has made them to stick together is common interest—opposing Afghan government.
However, efforts worked out somehow and created confusion among common people but least affected the educated layer in the society. They still strongly believe that Taliban regime is a kind that cannot be exposed to change that easily. They still strongly believe that they fight for establishment of an Islamic regime based on understanding of Mullah Mohammad Omer and other Taliban leaders.
Without going against or in favor of the notion, there is something certain that Taliban leaders would not accept the woman participation in civil services and other social, economic and political sphere as they are involved now. Even those who try to depict a new image form Taliban, they know it. And there is the possibility the very people now holding administrative or political posts forcedly remain silent against woman social and political participation. If the circumstances go to their favor, they would be proved far conservative and traditionalists.
Thus, there is one thing clear that, not only Taliban militants, but some people within the administration have anti-women tilt if the circumstances change and they are provided the chance to express their inner tendency. The danger would be multiplied on the absence of foreign forces in whose presence many dare not to pressurize government to include their extremist interpretation of women rights and restrict laws previously approved with annexation of conditions.
But nobody should doubt there is occurring fundamental change in Afghan society. Public conscience has become much sensitive and there is growing support for women rights. In many big cities, common people's concept of women has undergone fundamental change due to exposition to circulation of ideas and theories put by liberal wings.
Three years ago, girls were walking generally in group in order to feel safer against frequently boys' teasing. Much assertive position of new Afghan women generation is the sign of fracture in the conservative culture, which is promising.