It would be surprising indeed if decades of violence and brutalization had no effect at all on a society. In Afghanistan this effect is observable in the mental health statistics of those who populate that battle-scarred and faction-driven land. According to Canadian writer, Terry Glavin, who has spent time in Afghanistan, there is a high incidence of mental disorders there, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
However, for women, the threat of mental problems is intensified by their poor status in Afghan society. Formerly enslaved by the Taliban, some women still face subjugation on a scale that boggles the Western mind. Is it any wonder then that Afghan women turn to suicide to escape what is often a brutal and oppressive existence?
Afghan Misogyny
Recent cases in Afghanistan have brought the desperate plight of many women there to the world’s attention. News reports have recounted cases of disfigurement, “honor” killings, flogging, and unjust imprisonment. Although shocking to those who assume that Western values of individual freedom, fair treatment, and equality are held universally, these cases, sadly, exemplify values that are in conflict with Western ideals.
In that landlocked country, deeply embedded customs serve to perpetuate and reinforce oppressive ways. Over past centuries, tribal traditions have blended with Islamic teachings resulting in the predominant values of male superiority and female seclusion in both rural and urban locations. There, a woman’s worth is estimated in terms of her relationship to a male. Cases of child marriage are common, woman abuse is rampant, and a female is seen largely as a commodity.
Sahar Gul, a Tortured Child
Although hardened at hearing reports from a country where shocking violence is almost routine, the world still reeled in December 2011 at the news of a tortured female child in a town in northeastern Afghanistan. Sold off by her brother for marriage at age 14, Sahar Gul was imprisoned in a cellar, subjected to beatings and torture because she wouldn’t comply with her husband’s and mother-in-law’s demands that she turn to prostitution to provide them with money. Despite escaping once and telling her story, Gul was returned by local authorities to her tormentors. When finally rescued, she was in critical condition.
The values being protected here, by the reluctance of officials, neighbors, and family to help Gul, were the traditional roles of females and family “honor” in that tribal and Islamic society—at the expense of a young girl’s freedom, dignity, bodily integrity, and mental and physical health.
"The Cultural Trump Card"
The protestations of cultural relativists, who think all cultures are equal—that the West has no business interfering in internal Afghan matters—heap further injustice on the already victimized females of Afghanistan. Terry Glavin relates that there are some in the West who feel that NATO forces should not be in Afghanistan—regardless of the aims of democracy-building and Afghan liberty. Also, they claim that the plight of Afghan women is romanticized by the West, and even that Afghan women were better off under the Taliban. He quotes activist Sally Armstong as calling this “the cultural trump card.” Protest voices such as those simply have never accepted that universal human rights are just that—universal.
“Bitter Reality” of Afghanistan
However, even in Afghanistan, Gul’s case has sparked outrage, but how much is genuine and how much is in response to world opinion is not clear: a spokesman for the Health Ministry denounced “the bitter reality” of Afghanistan and Afghan President Karzai called it “cowardly violence”according to The Vancouver Sun. The Kabul Press proclaimed her case "a clear image of women's life in Afghanistan."
The story of Gul was covered worldwide with blistering condemnation: The Sydney Morning Herald called her a “tortured child bride’; The Daily Mail declared her “the bruised and bloody face of women’s right in Afghanistan.”
The women of present-day Afghanistan have survived the brutal Taliban years, only to now face the ongoing oppression of the current Islamic-dominated society there. International military and humanitarian aid on a massive scale has poured into that country since 2001, yet still schoolgirls are splashed with acid, teachers of girls murdered, wives mutilated by disgruntled husbands, girls gang-raped. Gul’s horrific experience is not unique: although its cruelty drew world attention, the violence inflicted on the 87% of Afghan women who endure domestic abuse (RAWA) is mostly unreported and unpunished.
High Rates of Suicide
“Enslavement” is a strong term, and will no doubt elicit objections. But how else does one characterize the conditions faced by many women there: forced marriage (for both girls and adult women), confinement, enforced ignorance, abuse, with impunity often granted to attackers and “honor” killers?
However, the practice that confirms an Afghan woman’s status as chattel, as in slaveholding, is baad, “the tradition of giving away girls to settle disputes,” according to RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. This grassroots organization, formed despite violent opposition, amply chronicles their plight, in which death is often seen as escape: “Many women are turning to suicide in order to escape the violence they face. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where suicide rates of women outnumber those of men.”
Sahar Gul, however, did not turn to suicide, although she now suffers the effects of severe mental and physical trauma—a grim addition to the country’s swollen mental health statistics. Her ordeal, though thankfully over, is being lived out there by other girls every day. The enslavement of Afghan women is real and has not yet ended.
Sources:
Chavis, Melody Ermachild. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan: the Martyr who Founded RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Glavin, Terry. Come from the Shadows: the Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2011.
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Jen L. Jones - Based in Canada, Jones writes on human rights, history,and the natural world. She focuses also on Turkish and Scottish travel and ...
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