This Is What An Abused Afghan Woman Looks Like
Johann Hari’s review of a book by Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, over at Slate says many of the things that I have been feeling and writing about at The Desk for some time. The book, titled “Half the Sky,” is an exploration of the subjugation of women in the developing world. The lede of the review reminds me of a picture, taken by a female Afghan photographer and passed along to me by a colleague, that I saw not long ago. The photo is of a young Afghan woman who was disliked by her new step-mother. The step-mother decided to punish the girl, and forced the child’s head into an oven, leaving a mask of naked, charred flesh, where facial features used to be. I’ve included a link to the photo after the jump, but be warned, it is extremely difficult to look at. If you’d rather not, just read Hari’s lede, which could easily be a description of the picture:
As soon as I started reading this cry against the global wasting of women’s lives, I could smell Shahnaz’s face—what was left of it—again. By the time I met her in a hospital in Bangladesh, Shahnaz’s face flesh was a mess of charred meat: Her skin, the soft tissue of her cheeks, and the bones beneath had been burned away. Her nose was gone, replaced by two flared holes. Her lips hung down over her chin like melted wax. Her left eyelid couldn’t close, so a trail of tears was forever slowly tracking down over the wounds. Shahnaz was 21 years old, and her husband had just thrown acid in her face.
To see to photo, click here.
The thing about Hari’s critique that struck me most powerfully (besides the opening) is how she enumerates the west’s complicity in these horrors:
One of the worst places in the world to be a woman is Saudi Arabia, where you can be imprisoned for trying to drive a car and lashed for being raped. Perhaps the very worst is Afghanistan, where—outside the Potemkin village of Kabul—women are almost invariably imprisoned in their homes and used as property-cattle in private fiefdoms run by warlords.
Yet woman-lashing Saudi Arabia is the closest U.S. ally in the region (along with Israel), and woman-crushing Afghanistan is actually occupied by the United States. The rights of women are being casually sold out in exchange for oil, military expediency, and hard geopolitics.
I agree with Hari’s sentiment wholeheartedly. The US could take a much stronger tack in pursuing an agenda of women’s rights in Afghanistan, but doing so would likely jeopardize relationships with the above-mentioned warlords, who we need to make any kind of progress here. It sickens me that with tens-of-thousands of US soldiers on the ground here (some of whom, I might add, are women) females are still essentially prisoners in their own homes and considered property to be used for barter.
This is not to say that the coalition is sitting on their hands entirely. I received this press release today from the US military command in Afghanistan, announcing the expansion of a women’s center in Gardez. The expanded center will provide, “eight additional classrooms for instruction in teaching, computers, women’s rights, and civics training. The Department of Women’s Affairs also plans to hire more staff members to provide assistance with women’s legal issues in the new facility.”
This is a good thing, but the fact that we’ve been in Afghanistan since 2001 and this women’s center is just now being refurbished is troubling. What’s more, women’s centers are nice and all, but they do little to fundamentally alter the power balance in Afghanistan between men and women. If a man forbids his wife, daughters or mother from going to the women’s center, all those computers and “civics training” aren’t going to do much good.
In Afghanistan (even in Kabul) it is still totally acceptable for a man to make such a unilateral decision for the women in his life. The laws here support that behavior and society accepts it. Until that changes women like the one pictured above will remain voiceless victims, drowning in a sea of hate and misogyny.
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Here’s a question I ask sincerely, not to be provocative. If the U.S. (or any other troops from a Western democracy) were not in Afghanistan, what would change in the way women are treated? Do you believe it’s the military’s responsibility (surely not) to change a milennium’s worth of attitudes toward women and their role? If not, whose job is it (is it even possible?) to shift these attitudes?
There’s no argument about the need for women and girls everywhere to be treated with dignity, respect and humanity, but Afghanistan is not the only country (as Kristof has written for years) where women are treated like garbage and totally under the control of men or their families. It’s disgusting and brutal and I cannot imagine what action from anyone is likely to significantly change it.
I don’t see the connection between a military occupation (which has specific unrelated goals) and the lousy treatment of women.
A good point, Caitlin. I don’t expect the military to do much on this issue, they’ve already got their hands full with an insurgency. But their presence (to say nothing of the thousands of US and European governmental advisors/contractors here and the billions western nations spend in Afghanistan) gives Washington and other western capitals leverage that they don’t have in places like Sudan. NATO soldiers are responsible for training Afghan police, regular army, special forces, border patrol, air corps, counter-narcotics forces, the “Afghan Public Protection Force,” the National Security Directorate, and Afghan farmers, just to name a few. So when a law comes to the floor of the Afghan parliament saying that women who won’t wear makeup have a right to be beaten by their husbands (as recently happened,) I think NATO countries have a right to do more than just issue press releases voicing displeasure.
What happens to women here is totally unacceptable. The fact that NATO has a tremendous amount of resources on the ground in Afghanistan (and not just the military kind) puts these nations in a position to at least try and do something about it. I would not suggest invading a country over this (though a case could be made) but since NATO is here and professes to have the best interests of all Afghans at heart, it is unconscionable that more is not being done.
Thanks for such a thoughtful answer. I just struggle with the essential fundamental difference(s) in how women are treated in some countries — like crap — and what, if anything, will ever alter that. Seems there are so many intertwining threads: education, physical access to schools and affording them, child labor (versus educating a girl they just want to marry off later) and then the subjugation of women by their husbands once they’ve started having kids even in their teens. I wonder (?) how much better women are in Kabul (i.e. big city) than rural areas where choices are much more limited.
I admire your zeal on this issue, believe me!
Neal Conan, on his NPR radio show, had a guest named Awista Ayub who has written a book about women’s soccer in Afghanistan. Born in Kabul, ms. Ayub grew up in the US, became a scientist but decided to make a difference in the lives of at least a few Afghan women. The book is entitled “How Tall the Mountain: A Dream, Eight Girls, A journey Home.” It seems Ayub’s goal is to help empower Afghan women, introduce, or encourage, a passionate outlet for the repression you write about. The eight women who formed her first team apparently played in the infamous Kabul sports arena. Soccer – “football” in most of the world – has played a role in global peace-making for a long time. Perhaps the sport will be a symbol of hope for the women in Afghanistan. Tom Medlicott
Great article. For years I have been ranting about the contradictory nature of US foreign policy in that we proclaim that we support freedom throughout the world, yet many of our closest allies treat women like animals and are by no means “free”. It’s not so much that our soldiers should have a responsibility to change the cultural norms of Afghanistan (or any other country), but instead that our soldiers should not be fighting for a country that treats women in such a horrific manner. I understand that the corporate powers that determine policy in our country have their own plans for Afghanistan that require the continued presence of our troops, but morally, we should not be fighting for a culture that encourages such savage behavior.
If we really want to fight “terrorism”, then it is essential that we get to the root of the problem (poverty, lack of other options, access to education, the presence of “infidels” on holy land, etc). Considering that one of the greatest predictors of economic development is some form of gender equality measurement (I can’t remember if its economic, educational or social in nature), I have my doubts regarding the short or medium-term feasibility of developing Afghanistan to the point where it is no longer a “hot-bed for terrorism”.
Historically, despite our reputation as a beacon of light for freedom, we have had no qualms about supporting dictators whose conception of human rights is limited to one’s right to produce consumer goods for the “developed world”. I do not suggest that we take a wholly idealistic approach to foreign relations, but it is morally unacceptable to implicitly support this type of behavior.
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