Daughters of Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a country where survival is a fight. Poverty, diseases, poor health care, and starvation is an everyday struggle in daily life. If you are an Afghan woman these issues are compounded by the fact that women are seen as being objects. Women are not worth as much as a man. Women in Afghanistan are seen as inferior. Women can be put to death for the slightest insinuation of an insult to a man. These are just a few of the issues that the women and girls of Afghanistan face every day. The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of the hate and violence comes from male family members.

Honor killings are allowed in Afghanistan. A woman does not even have to do anything wrong to be killed. If there is any inclination that the woman has embarrassed her family, she can be killed. Women in Afghanistan are very rarely given medical treatment. There are so many obstacles that Afghan women face that the majority of women here in the United States cannot even imagine. I know I cannot imagine being set aside just because I could not bear a son or children. I do not want to even try to think of the violence that these women face if they show any sign of disrespect.

Afghan women are seen as mindless broodmares. Not all men see them this way but the majority of the male population does. Many men say that their religion teaches that women are not as smart as men and those women should be meek and obey what their husbands and fathers tell them to do. In 2004 a Canadian journalist traveled to Afghanistan to learn about Afghan women’s rights. The trip ended up being the base for her movie, Daughters of Afghanistan. In the movie journalist Sally Armstrong talks too many women. She listens to their stories of their bravery and courage.

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In September of 1996, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. The Taliban forced women into their homes. The Taliban would not even allow women to have health care or schooling. An Afghan woman could not even think of asking about birth control. Women’s’ rights activists in Afghanistan look forward to the day that women can walk around outside without consequences. There are some places like in Kabul where this can be done. However, in the rural areas many of the old ways still have hold and women are not allowed to be out of their houses.

In the rural areas animals are still seen to be worth more than a woman or girl. In Daughter of Afghanistan, one of the most important women in Afghanistan today are Dr. Sima Samar. Dr. Samar was born on February 4, 1957. After the fall of the Taliban, the Afghan government promised that life would get better for women and girls. Dr. Samar agreed to an arranged marriage so that she could go to college. In 1982, she received her degree from Kabul University. Shortly after Dr. Samar had started practicing, she she had to leave to save her life. She fled back to her home village.

She practiced medicine there until 1984. In 1984 her husband and son were arrested. After the arrest Dr. Samar and her family fled to Pakistan. From 1984 until 2002 she lived as a refugee. In 2002 she decided to return to Afghanistan. Dr. Samar has built clinics and shelter for women and children in Afghanistan. She has also opened a school for women. Beside the schools and shelters Dr. Samar has also built clinics so that women and girls can receive medical treatment. After the fall of the Taliban, the government made a lot of empty promises.

Dr Samir was made Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Women’s Affairs in the first government after the fall of the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Islamic fundamentalists came out. They made sure that she was seen as an enemy to the state, not someone that was trying to help . Because she was brave enough to question practices that had been taking place for many generations soon after the fundamentalists spoke up she started receiving death threats. Doctor Samar is just one of the million women and girls that suffer in Afghanistan each day. Another woman who has face issues is Hamida.

Hamida is the principal of one of Dr. Samars high schools. Hamida also faces death threats for being brave enough to teach women how to do tasks like using a computer and how to drive, so that they can get jobs and support themselves. Women are treated like pawns in a game. A good example of this is a woman named Camellah. She is not allowed to say no to her husband when he wants sex. She is pregnant and doesn’t always feel like having sex. This baby will be her ninth baby. Camillah is afraid that she will not survive this childbirth. She is not allowed to even think of using birth control.

Birth control in most of the culture is unthinkable. Dr. Samar is one of the women that is trying to change that view. Another girl in the movie is Lima. Lima is not even sure how old she is. She thinks that she is 13. She acts like a mother to her younger siblings. If it is hard for an older woman with children to survive, imagine how old it is for a child to try to raise other children under this type of repression. A fourth woman in the movie is Soghra. She is a widow and pregnant with her seventh child. She was brave enough to walk for nine nights to avoid the Taliban so that she could find shelter in Dr. Samar’s refuge. Her husband did turn out to be alive but they are very poor. Even though the Taliban has fallen, the Islamic fundamentalists have resurfaced in a bad way. If a woman walks on the street even wearing her burqah, she is insulted and given hateful, angry, looks. Some things have changed but a lot has not changed for women. Yes, now some women do go to school and receive medical care, for the majority of women and girls, unfortunately this is not the case. Women and girls are still forced to marry, they still have to obey their husbands, they cannot make their own decisions.

They are still seen as less than human in their culture. Yes the Taliban has fallen and thanks to brave women like Dr. Samar some women and girls are getting an education. Unfortunately there are not enough shelters or safe places where women and girls may go in order to be safe. Safe from their own family. That is one of the most horrible things that I think goes on. Women cannot even feel safe with their husbands, fathers, uncles, or sometimes even brothers. The human rights disasters that took place under the Taliban were front page news.

Now since the fall of the Taliban, the western world seems to have forgotten about these women and children of Afghanistan. They are the forgotten daughters of Afghanistan. Change may be slow to come to Afghanistan but as long as people like Dr. Samar and other women stand up, there is always hope. When a person has hope there always seems to be a way to make a better tomorrow. Change may be too late for some women but for Afghan daughters and granddaughters, they may be able to have a better life than what their mothers and grandmothers did.

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