HVK Archives: The Women Held Hostage by Islam
The Women Held Hostage by Islam - The Economic Times
Posted By HVK Editor (hvk@hindunet.org)
Tue, 8 Oct 1996 08:14:31 -0500 (CDT)
The women held hostage by Islam
By Alex Spillius in Kabul
Time
_________________________________________________________________
THE announcement by the Taliban, the fundamentalist
Islamic movement controlling Kabul, that the restrictions on women
would be "reconsidered" at some point in the future, brought little
cheer to Safia, a 45-year-old widow, and her four daughters.
She has not left her house in the north of the capital since Sept 28
when the Taliban pronounced that girls were forbidden from attending
school and working women should stay at home.
Two of her daughters make occasional forays to the bazaar for food,
covered head to toe in the strict Islamic burqa that the Taliban has
decreed all women must wear in public. The others are not prepared to
suffer the indignity of viewing the world through a lace visor.
"We are afraid to go outside. Our neighbours saw the Taliban beating
two women because they were not properly covered. When you wear this
burqa you are not a person," said Safia. On the single occasion her
youngest daughter, Nadia, borrowed a neighbour's burqa for a quick
shopping trip, her brother walked straight past her. They could not
stop and talk as the Taliban has forbidden women any contact with men
other than close relations.
'I like the Koran. We accept the law of our Prophet - Peace Be Upon Him -
but we don't like the behaviour of the Taliban'
"If they had seen us talking we would have got in trouble. How could I
have proved he was my brother? Normally I stop and kiss him, but this
time I did nothing," said Nadia, 14, who in unwitting defiance of the
regime wears a black chiffon party dress at home.
"For me, learning English is so important, and I want to learn Persian
completely," she said, speaking through an interpreter who, along with
myself, was the first man outside the family any of them had talked to
since the fall of Kabul.
Safia, a high school teacher of 14 years and graduate of Kabul
University, added: "We don't like the Taliban for what they have done
to us. Everybody condemns them. In Western countries there is equality
for men and women. We want liberty too. It feels like in a week our
country has been turned back hundreds of years."
Although conservative by Western standards, Kabul society before the
Taliban takeover permitted men and women to attend parties together
and drink alcohol in their homes. Women were a vital part of the
workforce after the loss of so many men in 17 years of fighting
following the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Seventy per cent of the city's 130,000 civil servants were women. They
are now all at home on the promise of full pay until further notice.
From a busy life as a working mother, Safia now finds herself
virtually incarcerated at home. "I'm so bored I don't know what to do
with myself. Please tell me when this will end," she pleaded.
Her husband was killed by a rocket four years ago in the same wave of
fighting that destroyed their home. She now lives with her four
daughters and two young sons in a two-room rented flat.
The clampdown on women has been justified by the Taliban's official
news agency, which was inherited from the overthrown government. A
statement read: "It [the reforms] is a matter of pleasure to the
Afghan women whose rights and privileges are protected by the sacred
Islam religion."
But Kabul women condemn the current strict interpretation of holy law.
"The Koran does not say women must be covered totally," said Shefiqa,
a 27-year-old paediatrician.
"I like the Koran. We accept the law of our Prophet - Peace Be Upon
Him - but we don't like the behaviour of the Taliban."
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