“The war made me crazy”
Southeast-Afghanistan: Ground Zero for women’s rights.

Text: Irene de Kruif Photography: Marielle van Uitert

In their long garments, they appear to be gliding across the hospital floor. They are six girlfriends from Orgun, Afghanistan, on a secret visit to the local hospital to talk to two Western journalists. It's a visit that could cost them their lives. But they do it anyway, taking off their burkas to tell their stories.
Shayat, 50, is clearly a brave woman. “Can you poison my husband if I bring him over one time?” she asks her friends in jest during one conversation with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. The women laugh. They find the thought of murdering their friend’s 80-year old husband hilarious. They hate the man that hurt her so badly.

Shayat was only ten when she was married off. At 13 she had her first miscarriage. “My husband hit me so hard in the stomach, that I got six miscarriages out of 19 pregnancies,” Shayat later says in a trembling voice. “Five boys and one girl I lost.” The twinkle in her eyes is extinguished. Her morose expression betrays the difficult truth.

Beating is part of the culture in Orgun. The six friends all agree on that. In Afghan culture women can definitely expect the occasional slapping around.

“The meal isn’t on time, the tea’s cold, walk faster, take better care of the sheep, things like that,” Shayat explains the usual pretexts for a beating, adding, “Running away is not an option. He’d kill me.” For years Shayat has kept silent about her husband's violence. “Now he’s an old man, now I can handle him.”

She shares her sorrow with her girlfriends. Her husband is no longer interested in her. He’s looking for a second wife. Shayat says it gives her some space. “But he can’t find any new wife. He’s too old,” she observes.

For women’s rights, Orgun is a sort of Ground Zero. Women have been repressed for ages in this town, situated in a mountainous province nearby the Pakistani border. The burqa dominated the scenery in Orgun even in the seventies, when women were still able to walk around Kabul’s center in miniskirts.

Afghan women in general are not allowed to be seen and their number in Orgun is unknown. Women literally don’t count; only men are counted in census. Men are legally allowed to marry up to four women, but ten-woman harems are not uncommon.

For women, Afghanistan’s new democracy seems to make little difference. They do have the right to vote, but in practice this happens only when their husband gives them permission.

And there’s the Taliban. In Orgun they’re still the law of the land, with their own shadow-government. Bibi Zoro, 42, says her house is surrounded by Taliban. Her worst fear is that she and her family will lose their lives in fighting between the Coalition forces and the Muslim fundamentalists.

To her, this is no hypothetical concern. Recently a mortar destroyed her house. In 2001 her husband died in such a firefight. “He was a driver, somebody just shot him. His boss took the truck and we never heard from him anymore,” she recalls. Bibi Zoro is alone. She scrapes by thanks to menial jobs like washing clothes and baking bread.

Bibi Alemi, 40, wears white flowers on her jet-black burqa. She seems to be repress the war out her mind both literally and figuratively. She’s practically deaf and says she’s insane. Two of her sons died five years ago during a suicide-attack in a hotel in Orgun. “Their stomachs were split open, I saw everything, their intestines, everything.”

Now she can’t hear anything anymore. Sometimes she talks, sometimes not. “I lost my husband 12 years ago to illness, my sons I lost to the war. I’m not strong enough, I can’t handle it.” She clasps Shayat’s hands and starts softly weeping with the other women. Their calamitous fate seems to connect the women.

Gul Rezi, a 35-year-old widow, had to raise her children through three different wars. “I look 50,” she observes. Nik Bibi, also 35, lost her husband in a suicide attack. She was left with six children to raise on her own. The husband of Nur Bibi, 45, was shot dead in a fight with Taliban.

Widow’s are an especially vulnerable cast in Afghanistan. Some widows say they feel as though they are seen as worthless. And they can be seen right away, by the tattoo on their face – given to them shortly after taking their wedding vows – which advertises their affiliation to their husband, chosen for them and not by them.

The concept of falling in love doesn’t seem to exist socially. Privately, however, and after some persistence on the part of her interlocutor, Bibi Zoro confesses in a hushed voice: “Secretly I’m in love sometimes. But I really can’t tell anyone. Nobody can know!”

The six girlfriends form Orgun all married when they were little girls. More then half of the Afghani women marry before they turn sixteen. “Nobody asked us anything,” Shayat recalls. “We were married off as soon at birth.” Shayat is ashamed: “…and we did the same to our daughters. I’m so ashamed I let that happen. I couldn’t stand up to the authority of my husband.” Bibi Zoro adds: “When I heard my husband sold my daughter I could literally kill him: I hoped he would get under a truck!”

Daughters can be merchandise. Some are already engaged at birth. In Orgun, $15,000 USD is an acceptable price for a woman. A woman may also be offered off by her family as compensation for damages. A daughter can be given away to settle a conflict.

The six women in the hospital say they have no idea why they were married off. “They gave us away to just anyone,” Shayat says. Nur Bibi hopes her two grandsons will marry out of love one day.

By now women’s rights are mentioned in the Afghan constitution. Article 22 decrees that all Afghan citizens, man and women, should be treated equally. But centuries-long traditions tend to trump the brand new law. Besides that, article 3 states prohibits laws which contradict the laws of the Islam. This means the treatment of Afghani women will depend to a high degree on tradition and interpretation of the Sharia, Islamic law.

The six girlfriends are disturbingly aware of their inferior status in Afghan society. The small hospital ward functions, briefly, as haven from it. They speak openly of love and sorrow.

In the photo shoot, some of them even agree to lift a piece of their burqa. Their real selves are there to be seen. But all of sudden the women close up again. A man is looking around the corner.

Like a snow patch in the sun, the women disappear, retreating behind their burqas. Gone is the moment’s frivolity. The atmosphere turns formal and proper. Photographing the women outside the ward is out of the question.

Nik Bibi whispers: “If my brother knows I’m here, I’ll be killed.”


Women’s rights in Afghanistan