Women’s Rights in War Torn Afghanistan: Pervasive Poverty, Oppression and Abuse | Global Research

Women’s Rights in War Torn Afghanistan: Pervasive Poverty, Oppression and Abuse | Global Research:

 “When I was young I had not courage, but now I have courage.” Asra, a 12 year-old Afghan girl who lived in a refugee camp in Pakistan until she was 9

Afghanistan has been called ‘the worst place in the world to be a woman,’1 because not only is the poverty pervasive and the lifespan short, but while they are alive many women live like serfs. Afghan students at the private school for girls where I work in Kabul recently produced a series of essays in which they describe the social norms for women in their country. One wrote, ‘A girl in my culture marries at eleven or twelve years of age. Some parents make their daughters marry when they are very young so they can get money for their daughter and the family can be rich. When a girl is married, she accepts her husband’s orders; she must never tell people if she is being treated badly.’ Another of the girls was more blunt: ‘When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers; when brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.’2