Displacement, refugee life and freedom
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| source: Todayszaman | ||
| The headlines read, “More women to enter workforce if headscarf ban lifted.” Many Turkish women are pleased to hear this. It is a sign of hope. | ||
| The NGO Women for Afghan Women (WAW) took a step of hope in taking a strong advocacy stance against US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on the grounds that this would lead to a total takeover by the Taliban and a massive human rights crisis. Are there any signs of a better future? No real political solutions are in sight. When working with Afghan refugees in the 1980s in Pakistan, I realized that many Afghan men -- brothers, husbands and fathers -- actually wanted a better life for their female relatives. They appreciated that a group of foreign women had come to offer free primary health care for their wives, mothers and daughters. Back then, few Afghan women rarely ever received proper medical care due to most doctors being male. If they went to a male doctor, they were rarely, if ever, physically examined. Instead the woman was seated behind a curtain partition and asked to describe their symptoms and then given a prescription. Over 20 years later, despite the presence of the Taliban, there are many men in Afghanistan today who want peaceful lives for their families. They want to be able to provide for and be able to support their children. Many would like their daughters to learn to read and write. Not every Afghan male wants his daughter to be illiterate and married off at a young age. A special report by the ABC News, “Exclusive: The Secret Shelters That Protect Afghan Women,” stated that 90 percent of Afghan women have experienced some form of human rights violation. Under threats and pressure from the Taliban, relatives often are obliged to do things they would not choose to do. When you listen to the news and stories about this battle-worn, deprived country you can’t help but wonder what the future holds for it and the Afghan people. In the cover article of the August edition of Time magazine, “Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban,” Aryn Baker addressed some crucial points and asked the question on behalf of Afghan women, “What happens if we leave Afghanistan.” So far, families have become fragmented, with many of Afghanistan’s best minds migrating to the West. Having worked in Pakistan among the Afghan refuges in the 1980s I have seen first-hand the pain, fear, poverty, loneliness and poor health of many displaced Afghan women. The situation has only worsened in recent years. Our team heard many stories about how displacement and refugee life had affected people’s lives. One woman told me how they had to flee their village because of strife and fighting. She was depressed living in Pakistan, experiencing oppressive social conditions, poverty and heat. I saw how many crises and the large flow of refugees had come about. First came the Soviet invasion and war, then the civil war and now the oppression of the rigid Taliban regime. I remember a female patient who had fled Afghanistan with her husband and six children when the Russians bombed their village. They had crossed the rugged mountains and harsh terrain at night on foot in order to not be seen. Now they were living in a tent. Before the Taliban this woman had much freedom in her village in the mountains of Afghanistan. Upon moving to Pakistan and having to live in an unregistered camp she found her life more restricted than it was back home in the 1980s. Women and their families who returned to Afghanistan later -- after the Soviets left -- were only to find that in time their lives would become intolerable. Many Afghan women in the country today have serious emotional issues and needs. There are a few common threads that tie their lives and their stories together. The first is a sense of powerlessness in the center of a male-controlled country where social forces, peer pressures and political factors are rampant. The second is fear of slander, gossip, evil sprits and shame and dishonor. This strong undercurrent of fear is controlling and any opposition can result in severe punishment or even death. The third is the question of identity. A woman’s identity is based on the dictates of local culture and the Taliban codes of honor and of Islam. The question for their future remains: How can these captives be set free? | ||
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