What You Should Know About Women's Rights in Afghanistan

Just as the world's eyes are turning towards Afghanistan once again, a few conservative Afghan lawmakers are trying to pass a law that would, amongst other things, legalize marital rape, prohibit women from leaving the home without permission, deny them the right of inheritance, force a woman to "preen for her husband as and when he desires," and set the minimum female marital age to sixteen.

The draft proposal, which is aimed only at the country's Shia minority, recalls for many the harsh strictures of the Taliban era and has been roundly condemned in the international community: Hillary Clinton said that she is "deeply concerned" about the law, Obama found it "abhorrent", and others in the West have asked, "Is this what our soldiers are dying for?" The international condemnation has forced the Karzai administration to shelve the law for the time being, as the Afghan government pledges to look at the details of the bill more closely.

While the world buzzes about this latest setback for Afghan women, you might be wondering just what exactly the bill says about women's rights in Afghanistan.

What do Afghan women think about this law?

Most Afghan women have never heard of it. This is because the majority of Afghans are rural, living without electricity or a connection to the happenings in Kabul. Afghan women suffer from the lowest literacy rate in the world, at 13 percent. And the ones that are familiar with it mostly shrug their shoulders, because the conditions that the law imposes are no different than those that already exist in their everyday lives. The typical woman from the country's south or east, for example, cannot leave her home without a male guardian. She must wear the burqa in public at all times, and in some villages she must even don one in private. Marital rape is the norm in a society where sex is a man's right, not a woman's.

According to the UK-based NGO Womankind, anywhere between sixty and eighty percent of marriages are forced, 57 percent of brides are under the age of 16, and 87 percent complain of domestic violence. UNIFEM says that 65 percent of widows in Kabul see suicide as their only option to "get rid of their miseries and desolation." Thousands of women turn to self-immolation every year. There are no reliable stats on rape, as most women will never report it. This is because women can be convicted of zina, extramarital sex, if knowledge of the rape becomes public. In most of the country, even a woman just found outside of her home without the permission of her male guardian will be thrown in jail and tried as an adulterer.

How do Afghan women fare now compared to the Taliban era?

The answer, like most things in Afghanistan, depends on where you look and whom you ask. In the central highlands, for example, women of the ethnic minority group the Hazaras are usually allowed to leave the home and sometimes even find work. In Kabul, some females now have access to education, and there are well-paying NGO jobs available for the elite. Only five percent of girls go to secondary school throughout the country, but in Kabul more girls are enrolled than at any point in the last ten years.

In the south and east, life for women is mostly unchanged since the Taliban times: they remain cloistered indoors, in burqas, away from schools, without health care, without independence, and without protection from physical and sexual violence. And in some ways, life is even worse than during the Taliban: these women now live in an active war zone, caught in a crossfire between belligerents.

So the lives of women in the central highlands and in some cities have improved, while things have remained the same or even gotten worse for women elsewhere. The sum result is that things have mostly stayed the same for Afghan women since the fall of the Taliban. It shouldn't be surprising that the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development recently released a study finding that Afghanistan is the second most unequal society in terms of gender in the world. Or that Afghan women rank at or near the bottom in almost every conceivable world ranking: life expectancy, maternal mortality, access to education, access to health care, suicide rates, domestic violence, and more. In short, Afghanistan is just about the worst place in the world to be a woman.

Why are things so bad for Afghan women?

People wrongly assume that the Taliban is a sort of alien force, imposing misogynistic views on an unwilling society. For instance, Ellen Goodman of the Washington Post Writers Group writes in a recent editorial that:

Afghan women had slowly gained rights through the 20th century. They helped write their country's 1964 constitution. They served in parliament and went to universities. They were 40 percent of the doctors and 70 percent of the teachers. Then the Taliban turned their homeland into a patriarchal jail.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Afghan women did gain rights throughout the twentieth century -- in the cities. In the countryside, where the majority lived, no such thing happened. And the Taliban did not turn the Afghan homeland into a patriarchal jail; it was already a prison for women.

There are three causes for women's predicament. First, Afghanistan was and is a rural society, and in the south and east dominated by tribes. This tribal society is deeply patriarchal, with women commodified into a resource to be bartered, sold and fought over. Hence the Pashtun man is honor-bound to defend zan, zamin and zar (woman, gold and land).

Various Afghan leaders -- including some kings and the Communist government -- tried in vain to modernize the countryside. But this was a second reason why women remained oppressed -- the central state has been weak and unable to successfully enact reforms throughout the country.

Even as the central state made such attempts, other actors were actively working to undermine women's interests in the country. The third reason for the situation today is foreign intervention, especially by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The US and its allies supported the mujahedeen -- fundamentalist, misogynist warlords -- against the Soviets in the eighties. The mujahedeen transformed an extremely reactionary interpretation of Islam into the national standard, and in many ways were even worse than the Taliban. They burned down schools and libraries, killed women in public positions, enforced the burqa in areas under their control. They raped and killed thousands. After coming to power in the mid-nineties, they established a Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. One issued decree mandated that:

Women do not need to leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case they are to cover themselves completely; are not to wear attractive clothing and decorative accessories; do not wear perfume; their jewelry must not make any noise; they are not to walk gracefully or with pride and in the middle of the sidewalk; are not to talk to strangers; are not to speak loudly or laugh in public; and they must always ask their husbands' permission to leave home.

When the Taliban arrived in Kabul in 1996, they continued to enforce these mandates, without resorting to the widespread raping and killing that marked the mujahedeen government.

After the Taliban was toppled, the US and rest of the international community supported these same mujahedeen in their return to power. The majority of the Afghan parliament today consists of these warlords. Is it any surprise then that parliament tries to pass anti-women laws?

Can the West save Afghan women?

Many observers say that unless the rural, tribal structure of the society is changed, the patriarchal prison will continue. But that might be something only the Afghans themselves can accomplish. In the meantime, many Afghan women say that the West can help this process -- by dropping support for fundamentalists and misogynists.

It will be important to take such a step, they say, because the West has a credibility gap -- despite billions of dollars, thousands of lives lost, and scores of promises, Western intervention has not made the lives of Afghan women significantly better.

Anand Gopal is an Afghanistan-based journalist. To read more of his dispatches from the region, see his website: www.anandgopal.com.

Comments

[bismillah001]

Nice article, Anand. It is always encouraging (but exceedingly rare) when people are able to separate things like Pashtun tribalism from Islam. This reminds me, I need to keep in touch with an Afghan friend of mine. She is about 18 and left the country about 2 years ago, fleeing what would have been a forced marriage to her local warlord's son. She's really quite remarkable - she used to be a DJ at a radio station in her home town. Now she's staying with her cousin and aunt on the East Coast, where she's been studying English and preparing to go further with her education. She's such an inspiration to me; I will write her an email now to check up on how she's doing and whether she got her asylum. Insha'Allah everything is well.

[SoozeNYC]

Jon Boone, The Guardian UK: "A leading female Afghan politician was shot dead yesterday after leaving a provincial council meeting in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, which her colleagues had begged her not to attend. Sitara Achakzai was attacked by two gunmen as she arrived at her home in a rickshaw - a vehicle colleagues said she deliberately chose to use to avoid attracting attention. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murder. The two gunmen were apparently waiting for Achakzai, a 52-year-old women's rights activist who had lived for many years in Germany when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan."

[mergina]

Anytime a woman is controlled or sold or raped or brutalized because of the shortcomings of some man or his twisted religious ideals, she is a victim, and oneday will rise from this oppression to run your country, MARK MY WORDS. If the men of your country had to answer to my ALL WOMAN AMAZON ARMY I can assure you they would treat women better, or they would have nothing attached to them to treat anyone anymore.

[research]

We have enough ex military women around the world to create such an army. Would you want them to organize and go into places like Afghanistan and defend, arm and train the women? I believe people should defend themselves, so I wish women would do so. The fear is that they would go too far. Then again, men have gone too far for centuries.

[Brillig]

Rape in marriage is a misnomer. The word is based on the principle of NON-CONSENT. By marrying, you imply consent. I don't like the use of the word RAPE for non-consensual marital sex because it degrades the marriage.

Now, I am sure there are some violent men, married or unmarried who demand their "rights" Outside of marriage, this is rape, within it, it should be something else, perhaps equally repugnant, but, to claim that a man RAPED his wife, suggests his wife did not want him to begin with....that is wrong. It sends mixed signals. If I promise to love and honor and cherish you and worship you with my body, WHAT ARE the justifications to deprive you of the solace of my body?

Incessant, non-stop sex?
"Headache"
Upset because you cut up the credit cards?
Suspicion that you are cheating?
Quarrel with mother? Kids?
Genuine illness?

I put it to you readers, that most "marital rape" cases are the result of spite, pure and simple and that women play a LARGE part in making sex with their husbands a battle and their beds a war zone.

I also wonder how is it America believes it has the right to interfere in other cultures, when frankly, our entire sexual culture is of training our girls to sell their bodies to the highest bidder. Do you believe trying to be 40 lbs slimmer, even after having 5 children, is less confining than wearing a burka?

[PatchyWarrior]

Everything you say is hateful and mysoginistic beyond belief.

Is the husband 'honouring' is wife by forcing her to do something she doesn't wish to? Rape is rape if there is sex without consent. Being married doesn't change that. OBVIOUSLY.

"What are the justifications to deprive you of the solace of my body?" - What are the justifications for you to take ownership of MY body?

And please don't conflate the West's body-image issues (which are all too real, I grant you) with the repression engendered in the burqa - you might get called names if you're fat, but you won't be stoned to death/flog­ged/[inser­t horrific corporal punishment as applicable].

[RachelMc]

lol..gawd i can only assume u r joking. u can't be serious....

[Lilly-G]

What are you - some kind of caveman? I do believe most men think their wives are their property - and sex is their biblical right regardless of what the woman feels. Simply barbaric and unacceptable in the 21st century. I pity your wife.

[souix55]

you must have missed this part of the story..."According to the UK-based NGO Womankind, anywhere between sixty and eighty percent of marriages are forced, 57 percent of brides are under the age of 16, and 87 percent complain of domestic violence. "

I don't know what else to say to your comments other than you must be very unlucky in love...if you don't have a clue why, perhaps you should re-read your comments.

[Phong Long]

you've obviously never been forced to have sex against your will

[Tulka2]

The number one factor in whether a child will live to five years of age, is whether a child's mother is able to read. The number one factor.

[songoftherushes]

uh....anyone check out recent statistics on violent acts against women in western countries lately?

[Strywever]

Sorry, but there's no comparison, and you just can't make that stretch work.

[Tulka2]

Good point and it should give us pause. Why do women bear the brunt of male rage anywhere? But you know what...? It's not legal in most of the world. That's the difference.

[Brillig]

Anyone check out the size of LIP that most western women have? They are rude and disrespectful to their husbands. The "sensitive" husbands are treated like lap dogs, the ones who go out there to make life for them and family are treated to a litany of whining:

Why are you home so late?
We don't talk anymore ( could he even get a word in?)
I need to find myself
I stayed late at work kissing up to my boss while my husband and kids are waiting for me to come home
I am on an upward career path here, I can't relocate with you to New Mexico

and on and on and on.

[RachelMc]

lol...again u r joking right?

[Nyla785]

If you have legislate relations between husband and wife, that's no longer a 'marriage' , it's sexual slavery. And as an American, I refuse to support this in ANY way.

[propitiousmoment]

Actually as Americans we do regulate sexual relations between spouses to a certain degree, i.e., a marriage must be consummated. A husband or wife may initiate annulment proceedings if the other party cannot and/or does not cooperate sexually at least once. That's just part of the definition of "marriage."

[Figerre]

it has been repeatedly proven that to bring a country out of poverty and into the 20th century [let alone the 21st] you need to get women educated. Sons, in order to go on jihad, must get permission from their mothers. An educated mother doesn't usually give permission. If we REALLY want to bring Afghanistan forward - we need to educate each and every woman we can find - from small girl to great-grandmother. No one is too old to learn.

This is NOT news. It has just been ignored because it is easier to pretend, because Kabul has educated women there, that the rest of Afghanistan is the same. That is like comparing Chicago with a town of 200 or less. It isn't easy - if it were easy it would have been done by the Bush gang. America needs to get in there and build and protect women in schools...instead of pretending to do it.

[planetjeffy]

The mistreatment of women happens in most of the Arab/Islamic world. Are we going to be the enforcers over a billion people forever? America cannot force changes within Islam, it must come from within. Rape, whipping, stoning, illiteracy - are the accepted norm. Even Kuwait, which has an elected parliament is battling for control against the radical Islamists who want to take the country back to the middle ages. Until Islam reforms itself and steps into the 21st century, I say let them be.

[Eastexgal]

Yes we could let them be- except that their crazies tend to show up in other countries with a bomb straped to their chest. Although it's a good thing that we will not have to put up with crazy boy any more- they tend to take innocents with them.
Yes we could let the be- except the women of these countries are suffering NOW!!!

[Tulka2]

Let's offer to take the women away. They are very pretty women and many may want to leave for fairer shores. Well that would be that. Leave the men to their plots and revenge. Re-home and educate these women in China because Chinese men are low in goils and would really like some equal partners there....... and .... ahemmm.... while we wouldn't exactly be selling them... perhaps the Chinese might look kindly at a remortgage at a lower rate. LOL

[Brillig]

Rape is the norm in America too...Date rape, gang rape - common assault in America. Our rapists just don't claim to be doing it to enforce any laws, that's all.

If women, anywhere in the world need laws changed, they have to start with themselves, and their children.

How many times we hear women talk about nasty men, cruel men, and then turn right around encouraging the more despotic traits in their male children?

Every woman has a time window of 1-7 years to mould the mind of their male children. This is the time when MUMMY is the best, greatest and most beautiful of women, indeed, of all creatures. That is when you plant the seed of kindness to all, protection of the weak, restraint in the face of provocation, willingness to help with daily chores, in and outside of the home, etc.

You can't take the same boy at 15 and get him to do chores unless there is a miracle. Your casual conversation, your behavior, your choice of friends, the TV shows you watch, all teach your children what society expects of them. So parents, and WOMEN, need to understand their role in creating a society.

[MsBlack8]

So what responsibility should men have for their beliefs and actions? Your comments point the finger at women, blaming them for societal problems, blaming them for the violence waged against them.

Since you think women are responsible for so much, I think it would be a good solution if these women killed their husbands and the abusive men in their lives. Then they would be free and they could teach their sons to be civilized human beings.

[deepfreezevideo]

I think "The West" (read United States under the Carter administration) has done quite enough, and the Afghan situation is not fixable any longer. We've created a cancer and it has metastasized to the point where it is now inoperable.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are now the political equivalent of a nuclear reactor in full meltdown.
We can only hope to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan the way the Russians treat Chernobyl, dump a lot of concrete on it and create a sarcophagus in the hopes that none of the "radiation" escapes.

[Artos]

I probably shouldn't make this suggestion, but just to throw it out there I will. Instead of these women in various countries killing themselves when they fear judgement or being mistreated, they should do unto their husband or menfolk before it is done unto them. In other words, if you are going to be killed or kill yourself, at least have a good reason, like cutting your husbands throat in the middle of the night. It wouldn't be the first time it has ever happened. Even a story in the Bible mentions some woman who killed a king or some such after he took her against her will. As long as you are justified in doing it and it's not for some perverse reason, I think self defense is justifiable. Maybe when men lose a little sleep at night not sure whether they will wake up in the morning or not, it might make them think again about their actions. One or two guys suffering the consequences probably won't change much, but when a few thousand take a long sleep then perhaps things will change.

[MsBlack8]

I totally agree with you. This would be a beautiful act of karma and completely justified given their murderous treatment of women.

[Niasia]

I am sorry but I can not and will not follow a GOD that/who thinks it ok to make women inferior just because they were born women. What is it man. All around the world we are treated like inferior people. Even here in these united states with our gender roles and stereo types. And these women well they just have it hard! I am very fortunate to have been born here in the US. Even if I was born drug addicted to a heroin addict! I would take that life any day over these women! Always remember that where your life is hard someone somewhere is having it harder than you are! And these poor individuals have hard JUST BECAUSE they are women! How sad! I always have an argument with men but they just never get it!

[Gidster]

Even their Holy book, the Qu'Raan calls for equality in marriage, so Islam, like Christianity has been changed by man to suit whomever is in charge at the moment!

[Eastexgal]

That's why my faith in God is strong; yet my faith in man is ZERO!!!!!.

[Artos]

Gidster,
This is why I am not a follower of any Religion, When I was young I used to think why do women (Christian Women, as I live in the U.S), believe in the bible when it is clear to me that it was written by men for men and all it does is serve to justify their ideas of why it is alright to make women subservient. I thought the same thing about Blacks in America, Why do they believe in a book that belongs to a culture which enslaved them and is also used in order to justify the enslavement of Blacks. It made no sense to me. It's sort of like the Stockholm Syndrome, in which you adopt the goals and ideas of your abuser/ Kidnapper as a form of mental brainwashing. Why would you want to?

[Magdalena Cerrina]

This is not a belief of Islam--this is a belief of the *fundamentalist* culture.

[Artos]

I've read with interest many of the responses from both men and women herein and I can only conclude one thing. Either America will be at War forever, in which case we can expect quite a few more families minus a husband or wife, or we will be seen as an enemy and busybody by most of the rest of the world. Some Americans strike me as very naive. First of all we haven't been exactly the best example for the rest of the world when it comes to treating women well or equally. As a matter of fact I recall that before the sixties many people here at home (mostly Male) thought it was perfectly all right and legal to spank their wives. Before the sixties there was quite a lot of chauvinistic behavior on the part of men, and it isn't completely gone either. So how do we set ourselves up as holier than thou to other nations? So given that, how do we force men in other nations to treat their women better. Will we be at war Perpetually, and should we consider social change as a reason for war?Are we prepared to be at war continually? Does it do any good? Are we as Americans really equipped to be the judges of other societies? While making those changes sounds good, getting them done is a whole other thing.

[Brillig]

Also, although in America we have divorce, the fall-out of divorce for most families (even though the whole thing LOOKS civilized) is BRUTAL. Just as brutal as the lives of women in other countries. Our television makes it look OK. Ask the children. Ask the discarded wives fighting for every penny of child support from an uncaring father.

SO many children destined to poverty because of divorce. So many wasted chances and lives. Sex, the SCOURGE of the Western World.

[SourisOptique]

Oh yeah, you're SO worried about the "discarded wives." We've seen your other comments.

[VeroucaSalt]

There's nothing wrong with the way this law is written, EXCEPT that it should offer a singular alternative: those who would choose not to follow this law have the option of leaving the Afghan community. If this alternative were offered as an option, then the women would have a choice, rather than being a prisoner of the society they were born into.

I'm confident many women would choose to leave, and this would force the men in this patriarchal culture to rethink what they expect of their women.

[gallimaufry03]

And how, exactly, are they supposed to do that? It's one of the poorest countries in the world. Think they'll pass a law that will help them buy their tickets, pack up their kids, and go ... somewhere else?

How about the option is they pass another law allowing them to opt out of the first law?

[Strywever]

They would have to leave their children behind, because they certainly wouldn't be permitted to take them -- and most mothers wouldn't do that.

[Ratgurl]

Perhaps having the option BEFORE becoming a wife would make the decision easier. THAT is my proposal. It's a hypothetical.

Changing the law in these areas is far more difficult than just giving them an option to walk away.

[Lurlene]

How would they live? How would they feed their children (if they were allowed to take them, which is doubtful)? Where would they live? This "solution" is the same one often put forth for women in the western world who are victims of wife beating ("domestic violence" is too nice a word). When they compare their current miserable situation with leaving, it looks better than living on the street and starving with their homeless and starving children. It's easy to see that when Afghan women's miserable situations become unbearable, death looks better than "living." It's either self immolation, honor killing, or being in a living, male-dominated hell. And God help them if they try to get away (a ludicrous idea in a place where no one would help or hide them).

[Ratgurl]

Empathy for the victim in this way is the same as enabling. Everyone has it in them to muster up some courage & change their situation.

And under what I posted earlier, the option to leave would not be prosecutable. Stop making excuses for these people. IF there were an option do you seriously not think they'd consider taking it?

[propitiousmoment]

Right, and they'll just take the family checkbook with them, bc their husbands will willingly provide for their escape and lose their housekeepe­r/cook/nan­ny/bedmate­. No prob, just leave!

[Ratgurl]

What's worse: Being a prisoner in your own "home" or going out somewhere else where it's likely better & struggling a little. Give me a little struggle over suppression & slavery any day.

[escribacat]

If we Americans do anything in Afghanistan, we should help them build a secure educational system so girls can attend school without being assaulted.

[Yamunation]

Yes, with all our soldiers there, I wonder if some could not be assigned to guard the girls' schools.
What kind of democracy and freedom are we supposedly bringing to this region, if more and more of the women's freedoms are being taken away by the local laws? Women's status, as well as honor killings, should be considerations in how we do business, and wage war.

[gallimaufry03]

Exactly. Education is the key to resolving these issues. The Saudis and Taliban build schools to teach young men fundamentalist bs. If they had real schools, the issue would at least decline if not disappear.

[Harmony1812]

The men would never allow it. Not even if they were segregated. The best way to maintain power is to forbid education.