FUTURE

Veil of Uncertainty: Women of Afghanistan

By George Thomas
CBN News Sr. Reporter

CBN.com – KABUL, Afghanistan -- Twenty-year-old Rosia knows she is fortunate. Just a few short years ago, the scene of her working outside her home, would have been unthinkable.

She said, "I feel like a new women. I have tasted freedom, and now I know what it means to be free." Free from the tyranny of the Taliban.

"Sewing has changed my life. It may not seem like a big deal to women in other parts of the world. But it is for me. I am learning a skill that I can use to earn some money. Women were never allowed to work under the Taliban."

But that is slowly changing in the new Afghanistan. Some women are returning to work, others are back in school. Girls now make up a third of the four million-plus children in school.

At Kabul University, women are freely mingling with men in public. Some are choosing not to wear the black or blue burqa. Instead, many are wearing long shawls called a chador.

Some are also trading their burqas for microphones. At a popular radio station in Kabul, women are taking to the airwaves and tackling a wide-range of topics, including divorce and women's rights.

All signs of major progress in a country where women were severely persecuted. But the progress continues to come at a steep price.

Malalai Joya, a 25-year-old woman, did something last month that could have gotten her killed under Taliban rule. During a debate on Afghanistan's new constitution, Joya stood up and accused a group of powerful radical Islamic leaders of destroying her country. She said that the men should be tried for crimes against Afghanistan.

She said, "These radical jihadist leaders should face a national and international trial. Our people might forget them, history will not forget them. What they have done is recorded in our country's history."

Joya's microphone was immediately turned off. She was then removed from the debate. Joya is now under UN protection after receiving death threats.

It was another reminder of just how dangerous this country still is for women, especially for those living outside Kabul.

Dr. Suraya Pakzad, the head of Voice of Women, an organization that fights against all forms of social, political and economic exploitation of women, said, "Women are only free in Kabul, and that too, in certain areas of the city. If you travel just 20 miles away from Kabul, you will see that women are still suffering."

Pakzad ran a secret school for girls during the Taliban years. Now she runs an organization trying to educate the women of Afghanistan. She says that in the rural areas of the country, women still lead lives of hardship and even fear.

Pakzad said, "They don't have access to education, proper healthcare and the reality is that they are isolated from the rest of the country. Remember, women are the majority in Afghanistan and yet 90 percent of them still cannot read or write."

This situation is made worse by reports of widespread beatings, kidnappings, rape and forced marriages.

Pakzad commented, "I know many women who are suffering, and they are suffering in silence. Their husbands are evil to them, they mistreat them, and they beat them."

And in many cases, the crimes go unpunished. Fatema Gailani, an Afghan human rights advocate, says women in rural areas still live under centuries-old tribal customs. One alarming trend is the selling of women.

Gailani was asked if the selling of women is really occurring today in Afghanistan, Gailani said, "Yes, yes, not women; wives! They divorce them without this poor women knowing, and they just sell them... [This]happened only a few months ago."

Gailani and other women activists fear that Afghanistan's deeply held tradition, culture and religion could slow the process of making women's rights mainstream in the new Afghanistan."

Women are hoping it will get better now that Afghanistan has a new constitution guaranteeing them equal rights.

Afghanistans president, Hamid Karzai, said, "You are all equal and you have made a constitution for all Afghan people." But there are serious doubts whether these rights will have any impact on the lives of Afghan women.

Especially if radical Islamic judges continue to dominate the judicial system in Afghanistan. Human rights experts fear such judges will have the final word on interpreting women's rights in light of Islamic law.

Still, Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy head of the Supreme Court, insists women are treated as equals in his court.

Manawi said, "There is no discrimination against women in my court. They can come before the court, present their case and can defend their legal rights freely and ask for justice from the court. The judicial system is happy to help those who suffer at the hands of others."

But try telling that to Sharifa. Last year, Sharifa divorced her husband, and for that, she was thrown into this prison. In Afghanistan, it is a serious crime to leave your husband.

Sharifa, now a Kabul Prison inmate, said, "I was arrested during the Taliban and sentenced for five years, and spent five months in jail. That's when the Taliban was overthrown, and the new authorities released me. But recently I was arrested again; they told me for the same crime."

Sharifa is not alone here. Several other women, along with their children, are serving time for violating Islamic moral statutes.

Rachel Wareham of Medica Mondiale, an organization that offers support to traumatized women in war and crisis zones, said, "Mostly they are kept for crimes that we would consider in Europe and North America not to be crimes at all. They are mostly there for moral reasons and usually it is connected to them having sex with a man outside of legal marriage."

Fauzia, another Kabul Prison inmate, said, "I've spent six months at this prison, and I am sentenced for six years. There are no defense lawyers, no truth, and no justice."

And justice continues to take a beating in Afghan society. News agencies report that courts here have recently passed laws to make sure that women follow certain Islamic codes of behavior.

Those laws include:

A ban on coeducation classes

Limits to how much time women can spend by themselves without a male relative or husband

Forbidding women to sing in public

Prohibiting married women from attending high school classes

These are more reasons why countless women are forced to stay indoors or out of work, and millions of girls are out of school.

For now, women like Rosia are fighting the odds to fulfill dreams once shattered by years of conflict.

Rosia said, "I hope that one day I can be a great tailor, have my own business, sell clothes and live in peace. That will be a great day!"

No one here expects life to change overnight. But many do expect President George W. Bush to keep his promise to rebuild Afghanistan into a free and safe democracy. Until then, the women of Afghanistan continue to face poverty, ignorance, a culture of violence and a society where men often have the final say.

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