The BBC reports that many women are so desperate about their life situations that they are actually setting themselves on fire in a last ditch attempt to escape the horrible oppression they still live with.
One Afghan survivor, a 16-year-old girl, told the summit she had endured beatings from her drug-addicted husband, a man 25 years her senior and whom she was forced to marry.
"When he did not have access to heroin and narcotics, he tortured me. After midnight he would hit me," she said.
"That night he hit me and hit my head. Blood was coming from my nose. I asked him why he was doing it and he hit me even more."
Following the attack, she doused herself with benzene and lit a flame. Since then she has divorced her husband and undergone a series of operations.
Further:
Womankind Worldwide says there has been a dramatic rise in cases of self-immolation by Afghan women since 2003.
It believes many are the result of forced marriages, thought to account for about 60% to 80% of all Afghan marriages.
57% of girls are married before the legal marriage age of 16.
Domestic violence remains widespread.
At an Afghan women's shelter, a young woman told the film crew that she came to the shelter to forget life's troubles.
"I come here so I can ease the pain a little. When I am at home sometimes I feel as though someone is choking me," she told the film crew.
Womankind Worldwide says the Afghan authorities rarely investigate women's complaints of violent attacks.
Women reporting rape run the risk of being imprisoned for having sexual intercourse outside marriage.
Both Womenkind Worldwide* and Human Rights Watch acknowledge that small gains have been made since the Taliban were ousted from power, but girls and women still remain in great danger from destructive, culturally-accepted practices that Karzai is impotent to deal with since tribal leaders and Taliban remnants, supported by Pakistan [which has its own repressive laws against women] continue to hold entire areas of Afghanistan hostage despite the 5 years of war and so-called re-development.
The historical realities of the treatment of Afghani women are brutal. Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done and the issues involved certainly cannot be dealt with by military means. It may take generations for women in Afghanistan to finally realize the equality they deserve. In the meantime, Canadians ought to be kept fully informed about what's really happening there instead of being fed nice-sounding, Good News™ talking points by our politicians who are more interested in justifying the military mission there than finding practical, workable solutions to the myriad of problems faced by the people of Afghanistan. Women's rights won't be found at the end of the barrel of a gun and if Canada's foreign ministry is serious about advocating on behalf of these women, it needs to be forceful - forgoing the empty rhetoric and replacing it with aggressive action plans that will actually make a difference.
* Womenkind Worldwide offers a video and .pdf report on their site.
No comments:
Post a Comment