http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article349914.ece

The battle for human rights: In the shadow of the Taliban 

Afghan women still suffer widespread mistreatment, including rape, murder and 
forced marriage. Kim Sengupta reports from Kandahar on why religious zealotry 
and oppression still persist 
Published: 08 March 2006 
No place has been more synonymous with oppression of women in recent history 
than Afghanistan under the Taliban, and nowhere was the abuse more brutal than 
in Kandahar, the birthplace of the country's Islamist zealotry. 

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a report published yesterday by the 
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission presents a catalogue of 
continuing and widespread mistreatment of women including rape, murder and 
forced marriages leading to suicides.

There were 230 cases of self immolation. More than 38 per cent of the women 
interviewed said they were forced to marry against their will and 50 per cent 
said they were unhappy with their marriage because of domestic abuse. The 
figures are consistently higher in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan than the 
rest of the country. Official acquiescence to reactionary social forces and a 
resurgent Taliban has meant that many of the hard-won gains made towards 
equality are now at risk.

While voter registration nationally was 42 per cent in last year's elections, 
in Kandahar it barely reached 20 per cent, with figures even worse in rural 
areas of the region. Islamists distributed postcards at polling stations of 
women being beaten along with severed hands of thieves and the destroyed statue 
of Buddha at Bamiyan.

Today it is still impossible to find women not covered by burqas, the symbol of 
Taliban gender domination, on the streets of Afghanistan's second city. And 
many women have to hide the fact that they work from their neighbours for fear 
of insults, or worse. The reinvigorated Taliban burn schools and behead 
teachers for daring to offer education to girls. Judges steeped in decades of 
the most conservative form of Sharia law routinely send women and girls to 
prison for disobeying their father's choice in marriage, or deserting violent 
husbands. Rape victims end up facing charges of adultery.

To commemorate International Women's Day today, President Hamid Karzai has 
ordered the release of women prisoners serving short sentences in an attempt to 
rectify this injustice.

Despite all this stacked against them, the women of Kandahar are fighting back. 
Girls attend classes where they can and working-class women go to workshops 
behind the back of male members of the family. Increasingly, women are also 
turning to the same legal system used to punish them to argue forcefully that 
the law has been subverted and to demand their rights.

They are encouraged in this by Commander Malalai Kakar, Kandahar's most senior 
female police officer who leads a team of 10 female officers focusing on 
women's issues. Commander Kakar has led raids to free wives and daughters held 
captive by families, and her office has become a refuge for women being 
threatened and mistreated.

"I have been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives, and 
I admit this has happened at times. I had become angry," she said. "But what we 
try to do is apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to 
protect women's rights."

Commander Kakar, 38, cooks breakfast for her husband ("I recently got him a job 
in a construction company" ) and six children before going to work. She was a 
police officer under Afghanistan's successive leftist governments before the 
Taliban came to power. Like other women she was confined to the house under 
Islamist rule, fleeing to Pakistan after hearing that they were trying to track 
her down. "I have been wearing the burqa at work until only eight months ago, I 
decided then that I must make a decision on this. I have been using the media 
to tell women about their rights, so I felt that I should make a gesture. I 
think my male colleagues were quite curious to see what I looked like. I have 
to say that I have not had any discrimination from them."

One girl who came to ask for her help was Rosina, 18. Her father had in effect 
sold her to a man in his fifties for marriage and she fled the house when he 
beat her for refusing to go through with the ceremony.

"I am never going back to get married to that man, never," she said, drawing 
her scarf across her face. "My father and brother beat me badly with sticks 
when I refused. They can send me to jail but I am not marrying him." The police 
will try to negotiate with her family. The problems start when that fails. 
There are no women's refuges, and Rosina may well find herself at the mercy of 
a spiteful male judge.

Captain Jamilla Mujahid Barzai, 35, also left the police when the Taliban came 
to power, but was, she said, persuaded to go back to work after they arrested 
her brother and beat him up. She left after witnessing the public execution of 
a woman in Kabul's football stadium, a judicial killing which was filmed and 
shown later around the world as an example of Taliban savagery.

"I knew the prisoner, her name was Zarmina and she was convicted by the court 
of killing her husband. I shall never, ever forget the way she died," said Capt 
Barzai. "They made her kneel on the ground in the stadium, in front of all 
those people and then a man in sunglasses came and shot her in the head.

"Zarmina had twins in prison, they were six months old. Her husband's brother 
came and took them away. There was nothing I could do. So I left the police. I 
know there are mistakes made now, but one cannot believe what went on in that 
time of night. I think women should join political life to stop things like 
that happening again."

Two of Asma Kakar's aunts have done just that and have been elected to the 
provincial and national assemblies. The 17-year-old student wants to be a 
doctor, and, unusually in a traditional Pashtun society, her parents have 
agreed to let her go alone to study at an university in India if she succeeds 
in getting admission. "I know things have improved since Taliban times but 
there are still lots of restrictions that I don't like," said Ms Kakar, who was 
attending a computer course run by the Afghan Development Association (ADA).

"Women still cannot go out much, we still have to wear the burqa when we go 
out. We cannot even go for a picnic. But I know I am lucky, I have got no money 
worries. And I can get away from here, at least for a while, if I get the right 
grades."

Economic problems have followed the loosening of social strictures for many 
women. They are now allowed to work, albeit sometimes grudgingly, but with high 
male unemployment they are often the main breadwinners at a time of rapidly 
rising prices.

Sadia Kamrani, 23, works at the Ministry of Social Works and her $150 (£86) a 
month is the only income for her extended family apart from the infrequent 
earnings of her father-in-law. "I cannot have a baby. I have a problem which 
needs an operation, but I have not got the money for it," she said. "My husband 
is unemployed and I am supporting him. But I also know he will divorce me if I 
do not have a baby."

Ms Kamrani's family fled to Iran at the start of the civil war and returned to 
Afghanistan two years ago. "They say that Iran is a conservative country, but 
we did not have to wear that there," she said, pointing at her brown burqa 
hanging from a hook on the door. "The first few weeks I had to wear the burqa I 
kept on falling down because I could not see where I was going, and hurt myself 
badly. I do not like wearing it and I do not know any woman who does, but we 
are forced to.

"A lot of people also don't like women going to work. So we have to take 
different routes, otherwise I will get problems ... Every day there is 
shooting. This is again something we never had to face in Iran."

Sherifa Popal, 30, a seamstress from a poor part of Kandahar, who has six 
children, also got involved in the election process, firstly going to courses 
and then training a team of 42, including 11 men, in supervising the polls.

But now she is out of work and, with an ill husband, has to be the provider for 
the family. "I went to school up to grade 10, but then we had the civil war and 
the Taliban and my education stopped. I have been involved in civic education 
and the elections, and I have also run sewing classes," she said. "Now all the 
government departments are short of money for projects and I have no work. The 
only money I am making is by making some clothes at home. It is not enough, 
Kandahar has become very expensive.

"But one cannot forget how bad things were under the Taliban. We were captives 
in our homes and we cannot let those times return."

One of the projects still working are sewing classes run by the ADA. Naseema 
Ali, an instructor, recalled the Taliban days was when her husband, Nour, had 
to shut down his clothes shop because the mullahs decreed that a man should not 
sell women's clothes, even the shapeless burqas. "The girls I am teaching will 
leave as tailors and have some way to support themselves."

One gets a glimpse of just how much the odds are stacked against girls like her 
at the cemetery of "Arab martyrs", al-Qa'ida fighters who died in the last war, 
in the outskirts of the city. The graveyard has become a shrine with reputed 
healing powers and a place of pilgrimage from Pakistan and Iran as well as all 
over Afghanistan and thousands congregate every week. Westerners are not 
welcome and for those who do come the views about infidels and women have not 
changed from Taliban times.

"All my friends come here, these martyrs are examples to us all. Because of the 
corrupt Karzai government we now have all kinds of evils," said Bari Ali Ahmed, 
25. "We have alcohol, and women ... are flaunting themselves in public rather 
than being protected by staying at home. All this will change." 

No place has been more synonymous with oppression of women in recent history 
than Afghanistan under the Taliban, and nowhere was the abuse more brutal than 
in Kandahar, the birthplace of the country's Islamist zealotry. 

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a report published yesterday by the 
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission presents a catalogue of 
continuing and widespread mistreatment of women including rape, murder and 
forced marriages leading to suicides.

There were 230 cases of self immolation. More than 38 per cent of the women 
interviewed said they were forced to marry against their will and 50 per cent 
said they were unhappy with their marriage because of domestic abuse. The 
figures are consistently higher in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan than the 
rest of the country. Official acquiescence to reactionary social forces and a 
resurgent Taliban has meant that many of the hard-won gains made towards 
equality are now at risk.

While voter registration nationally was 42 per cent in last year's elections, 
in Kandahar it barely reached 20 per cent, with figures even worse in rural 
areas of the region. Islamists distributed postcards at polling stations of 
women being beaten along with severed hands of thieves and the destroyed statue 
of Buddha at Bamiyan.

Today it is still impossible to find women not covered by burqas, the symbol of 
Taliban gender domination, on the streets of Afghanistan's second city. And 
many women have to hide the fact that they work from their neighbours for fear 
of insults, or worse. The reinvigorated Taliban burn schools and behead 
teachers for daring to offer education to girls. Judges steeped in decades of 
the most conservative form of Sharia law routinely send women and girls to 
prison for disobeying their father's choice in marriage, or deserting violent 
husbands. Rape victims end up facing charges of adultery.

To commemorate International Women's Day today, President Hamid Karzai has 
ordered the release of women prisoners serving short sentences in an attempt to 
rectify this injustice.

Despite all this stacked against them, the women of Kandahar are fighting back. 
Girls attend classes where they can and working-class women go to workshops 
behind the back of male members of the family. Increasingly, women are also 
turning to the same legal system used to punish them to argue forcefully that 
the law has been subverted and to demand their rights.

They are encouraged in this by Commander Malalai Kakar, Kandahar's most senior 
female police officer who leads a team of 10 female officers focusing on 
women's issues. Commander Kakar has led raids to free wives and daughters held 
captive by families, and her office has become a refuge for women being 
threatened and mistreated.

"I have been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives, and 
I admit this has happened at times. I had become angry," she said. "But what we 
try to do is apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to 
protect women's rights."

Commander Kakar, 38, cooks breakfast for her husband ("I recently got him a job 
in a construction company" ) and six children before going to work. She was a 
police officer under Afghanistan's successive leftist governments before the 
Taliban came to power. Like other women she was confined to the house under 
Islamist rule, fleeing to Pakistan after hearing that they were trying to track 
her down. "I have been wearing the burqa at work until only eight months ago, I 
decided then that I must make a decision on this. I have been using the media 
to tell women about their rights, so I felt that I should make a gesture. I 
think my male colleagues were quite curious to see what I looked like. I have 
to say that I have not had any discrimination from them."

One girl who came to ask for her help was Rosina, 18. Her father had in effect 
sold her to a man in his fifties for marriage and she fled the house when he 
beat her for refusing to go through with the ceremony.

"I am never going back to get married to that man, never," she said, drawing 
her scarf across her face. "My father and brother beat me badly with sticks 
when I refused. They can send me to jail but I am not marrying him." The police 
will try to negotiate with her family. The problems start when that fails. 
There are no women's refuges, and Rosina may well find herself at the mercy of 
a spiteful male judge.

Captain Jamilla Mujahid Barzai, 35, also left the police when the Taliban came 
to power, but was, she said, persuaded to go back to work after they arrested 
her brother and beat him up. She left after witnessing the public execution of 
a woman in Kabul's football stadium, a judicial killing which was filmed and 
shown later around the world as an example of Taliban savagery.

"I knew the prisoner, her name was Zarmina and she was convicted by the court 
of killing her husband. I shall never, ever forget the way she died," said Capt 
Barzai. "They made her kneel on the ground in the stadium, in front of all 
those people and then a man in sunglasses came and shot her in the head.

"Zarmina had twins in prison, they were six months old. Her husband's brother 
came and took them away. There was nothing I could do. So I left the police. I 
know there are mistakes made now, but one cannot believe what went on in that 
time of night. I think women should join political life to stop things like 
that happening again."

Two of Asma Kakar's aunts have done just that and have been elected to the 
provincial and national assemblies. The 17-year-old student wants to be a 
doctor, and, unusually in a traditional Pashtun society, her parents have 
agreed to let her go alone to study at an university in India if she succeeds 
in getting admission. "I know things have improved since Taliban times but 
there are still lots of restrictions that I don't like," said Ms Kakar, who was 
attending a computer course run by the Afghan Development Association (ADA).

"Women still cannot go out much, we still have to wear the burqa when we go 
out. We cannot even go for a picnic. But I know I am lucky, I have got no money 
worries. And I can get away from here, at least for a while, if I get the right 
grades."

Economic problems have followed the loosening of social strictures for many 
women. They are now allowed to work, albeit sometimes grudgingly, but with high 
male unemployment they are often the main breadwinners at a time of rapidly 
rising prices.

Sadia Kamrani, 23, works at the Ministry of Social Works and her $150 (£86) a 
month is the only income for her extended family apart from the infrequent 
earnings of her father-in-law. "I cannot have a baby. I have a problem which 
needs an operation, but I have not got the money for it," she said. "My husband 
is unemployed and I am supporting him. But I also know he will divorce me if I 
do not have a baby."

Ms Kamrani's family fled to Iran at the start of the civil war and returned to 
Afghanistan two years ago. "They say that Iran is a conservative country, but 
we did not have to wear that there," she said, pointing at her brown burqa 
hanging from a hook on the door. "The first few weeks I had to wear the burqa I 
kept on falling down because I could not see where I was going, and hurt myself 
badly. I do not like wearing it and I do not know any woman who does, but we 
are forced to.

"A lot of people also don't like women going to work. So we have to take 
different routes, otherwise I will get problems ... Every day there is 
shooting. This is again something we never had to face in Iran."

Sherifa Popal, 30, a seamstress from a poor part of Kandahar, who has six 
children, also got involved in the election process, firstly going to courses 
and then training a team of 42, including 11 men, in supervising the polls.

But now she is out of work and, with an ill husband, has to be the provider for 
the family. "I went to school up to grade 10, but then we had the civil war and 
the Taliban and my education stopped. I have been involved in civic education 
and the elections, and I have also run sewing classes," she said. "Now all the 
government departments are short of money for projects and I have no work. The 
only money I am making is by making some clothes at home. It is not enough, 
Kandahar has become very expensive.

"But one cannot forget how bad things were under the Taliban. We were captives 
in our homes and we cannot let those times return."

One of the projects still working are sewing classes run by the ADA. Naseema 
Ali, an instructor, recalled the Taliban days was when her husband, Nour, had 
to shut down his clothes shop because the mullahs decreed that a man should not 
sell women's clothes, even the shapeless burqas. "The girls I am teaching will 
leave as tailors and have some way to support themselves."

One gets a glimpse of just how much the odds are stacked against girls like her 
at the cemetery of "Arab martyrs", al-Qa'ida fighters who died in the last war, 
in the outskirts of the city. The graveyard has become a shrine with reputed 
healing powers and a place of pilgrimage from Pakistan and Iran as well as all 
over Afghanistan and thousands congregate every week. Westerners are not 
welcome and for those who do come the views about infidels and women have not 
changed from Taliban times.

"All my friends come here, these martyrs are examples to us all. Because of the 
corrupt Karzai government we now have all kinds of evils," said Bari Ali Ahmed, 
25. "We have alcohol, and women ... are flaunting themselves in public rather 
than being protected by staying at home. All this will change." 


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