Suffering in silence

According to a foreign aid worker’s observations, the stifling situation for women in Afghanistan essentially remains unchanged.

By HEIDI KINGSTONE
Afghan women_521 (photo credit: Lorenzo Tugnoli)
Afghan women_521
(photo credit: Lorenzo Tugnoli)
KABUL – In the south of Afghanistan, where the ultraconservative Pashtun tribes dominate, women’s lives are evaluated by the amount they suffer. They gain status with the tears they shed. After almost a decade of international engagement and billions of dollars spent on gender mainstreaming, the situation for Afghan women remains on aggregate as desperate as it was.
Over the past nine years that women’s rights have been enshrined in the constitution, international and Afghan legal wizards have worked to reform the system to bring in gender equality and write laws that protect girls and women. The laws are rarely implemented, and there is little political desire to do so. Afghanistan fights many chronic problems including great poverty – it is the poorest country outside of sub-Saharan Africa – extremely high illiteracy rates, lack of infrastructure, massive corruption, inadequate health care, chronic food insecurity (as well as a decade-long drought), poor governance and a poorly functioning justice system. Levels of domestic violence are of epidemic proportion. A UN Development Fund for Women report found that 87 percent of Afghan women reported being beaten on a regular basis. Girls have acid thrown in their faces for going to school.
Maternal mortality rates may have improved, but Afghanistan still makes the world’s top three, and female life expectancy is 46. The tradition of child marriage continues; girls are given away to resolve disputes, and forced isolation in the home marginalizes millions of Afghan women and girls. President Hamid Karzai’s wife is an interesting example. She was a practicing gynecologist before getting married. Now, as a good Pashtun woman, she is never seen in public.
Some religious leaders reinforce these harmful customs by invoking their interpretation of Islam. In most cases, however, these practices are inconsistent with Shari’a law. as well as Afghan and international law, and violate the human rights of women, according to a recent report by the Swedish Committee. Another recent survey of the region showed that the overall trend favored harsher Shari’a law.
Powerful men, warlords and former mujahuddin, who have violated women’s rights and massacred fellow Afghans, hold the reins of political power. “There are two types of Taliban,” said a successful UK- and Soviet-educated Afghan woman in Kabul, “and those in government are the worst. They don’t believe in women’s rights, but they tell donors and the international community that they do. Gender issues attract donor money.”
In any case, many women lack any skills that could make them independent, further compounding the problem. “Men can’t make decisions,” says an Afghan woman who spent several decades in California and returned nine years ago, “because since they were children, their mothers and sisters have done everything for them, and then their father makes all the other decisions – what school to go to, what clothes to wear, whom to marry. Finally, by the time a man is 30 and in a good job, probably at the ministry, he has never made a decision and now can’t. Why should he want to change?”
The gap between what we have tried to do and what has been done is huge. This, too, has been compounded in some measure by Western arrogance manifested by sending in a series of men and women on short-term contracts – usually six months – who become instant experts and believe they can resolve the long-entrenched problems and complex cultural issues that have defeated legions of others.
WHILE THE situation is not black or white, it remains difficult to understand why women do not embrace the freedoms we consider as simple universal human rights, especially when women, even in the villages, soak up any information they can get their hands on. This often frustrates the expat community, who have come here for a variety of reasons, not least to bring change to the women of Afghanistan. As with anything, the picture is complex and nuanced. Afghan women, like women anywhere, can be strong, assertive, smart and successful. They are resourceful, they are survivors, and they are fighters.
In this society, we foreigners expect women to play the victim, and it is easy for them to do so because we don’t expect more. We like this paradigm and understand it; but, of course, not all women are victims.
One aid worker explains what she has found over the two years she has worked in Afghanistan. “I realized during a management meeting that a very common way for foreigners, especially men, to give Afghan women their voice or to empower them or involve them in the decision-making process was to actually first define them as victims. The only way the management could relate to female Afghan employees or see the importance of empowering them was to first have them admit that they were suffering from some kind of subordination. That gives women their voice, but it lets them off the hook when it comes to accountability.
“Men indirectly create the big solidarity gap, fueling the competition among Afghan women, so there is no sense of sisterhood. Today for a fairly good English-speaking Afghan woman, there are no limits in the NGO world when it comes to position and salary. But it’s also important to see the symbolic act in recruiting more Afghan women in leading NGO positions. We get them on board, which means that we can tick off ‘involving women in the decision-making process,’ and show that we value equality.
“But then to create an environment where they can actually function within the NGO sphere on their terms is not something many NGOs are interested in. However, the responsibilities, expectations and social control will increase for these women, but they will not get the authority or mandate to actually make any decisions or change in their professions, and it is still foreign men who fight their cause.”
But when women earn money, especially when they become the breadwinners, it helps change mind-sets that are enormously difficult to change in any environment.
But in Afghanistan, perhaps in a way that is different from its neighbors, Islam is a way of life and its tenets are deeply ingrained in society. Instead of confronting issues, women have learned to maneuver around the patriarchal system in a very intelligent way and in a manner that does not disturb the status quo because without family, life here is almost unbearable.
In one community, women have gained self-confidence and are demanding their rights. Hazaras, long the underdog in this Pashtun-dominated country, fled to Iran – they share the same Shi’ite faith – during various upheavals and conflicts. While the Sunni Pashtuns largely keep their women uneducated and at home, the more liberal Hazaras are shifting the balance in this game-changing development. They have returned from years of exile educated and more liberal.
Women are up against huge obstacles, but one Afghan woman says, “My father raised me to be like a spring. The harder I am pushed down, the higher I spring back.”
Another woman in Kunduz, a province in the north, explains how sensitive the situation is: “If men who are not relatives are in the house and they even hear women’s laughter or talking, they say it is a bad family.”
The woman came back from exile five years ago to help, but she has seen the situation deteriorate. She had never worn a burka before but does now. “Women hate wearing them,” she says. “With the younger generation in Kunduz, a father or a brother might say, ‘Don’t wear it’; but once they are married, their husbands insist they do.
“Women live terrible lives. It’s very difficult to be a woman here. All ways are blocked. If a woman wants to study or work or marry, she cannot make her own decisions. She has to follow her family and society. In Uruzgan [a volatile province in the east and the birthplace of Mullah Omar], for example, after the age of eight, girls and women are no longer seen in public; and if they are, it is never without a burka.”
“We need to shed light on what really is also happening on the ground,” says one Kabulbased expert. “Parliament has x percent of women, but sending women in numbers to the political arena can be disempowering. They may not represent women’s strategic interests for many reasons, not least that they lack relevant or any experience. A quota system should be carefully thought through.
“The top-down approach, which has been the chosen route so far, is not the key to the problems. It is time to reflect upon what has been done and what needs to be done in future. Instead of being obsessed with numbers, we need to focus on the grassroots. There are plenty of females who are natural leaders in each village. By bringing women together in a purposeful manner outside the political space, there is a better chance of success.”
Kabul itself might be seen as a sign of change. During the civil war, the city was destroyed. Under the Taliban, the capital was a ghost town. Now women are seen on the streets, they work in offices, some are bold enough to let their hijab – called bad hijab – slip further back over their hair rather than have it wrapped tightly around their heads.
Kabul is booming, fueled by drug money and aid money; large “poppy palaces” have sprung up all over town; glossy storefronts stock imported goods; there are supermarkets, a proliferation of restaurants, shopping malls, a few more paved streets and other visible signs of progress. Whether this is sustainable is a matter of debate.
Inevitably the situation has changed for some women. Perhaps the West’s timetable has been unrealistic, as well as its agenda. The question remains whether the change has been enough for Afghan women.
As one Afghan-American woman says, “We are the victims of our own perception. We have come to Afghanistan and it has been an amazing experiment, like coming out of the Dark Ages. But it is an experiment that has faltered.”