preview

The Living Dead of Afghanistan Essay

Better Essays

The Living Dead of Afghanistan Travesties are committed against women every day, in every country, in every city, town and home. In Afghanistan women are not only discriminated against, they are publicly reduced to animals. Women are deprived of basic human rights: they are not allowed to travel outside their homes without being completely covered by the traditional shroud-like burqa; they are not allowed to speak or walk loudly in public; they are not allowed to laugh or speak with other women; they are not allowed to attend school nor work; they are expected to be invisible; they are the ghosts of what were once educated, notable, and successful women. With their ruthless and extreme laws, the Taliban have effectively …show more content…

The women are watched extremely carefully. If a mere inch of skin shows beneath a woman’s burqa, a garment that covers the body from head to foot with a cloth mesh over the eyes, multiple Taliban guards will publicly beat her. If a women is seen talking to a man who is not her mahram (a close male relative) she will be accused of adultery and either be arrested, beaten, or even in some cases executed. In Saira Shah’s eyewitness video of Afghanistan, she reported a specific incident in which a woman was seen by the Taliban talking to a male that was not a relative and was arrested after being beaten with a cable. She was found guilty of adultery and was publicly executed (“Beneath”). Women are not allowed to be represented in a trial, nor are they able to testify. Examples similar to this one are very common and illustrate the pure brutality and cruelty of the Taliban towards women.

In Youssef Choveri’s book, Islamic Fundamentalism, he writes that the Taliban emerged from religious schools run by Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 1994. He also states that due to these circumstances, these young men grew up in very strict and cold-hearted environments, with no experiences that involved women (174-175). In turn these men have no respect for women as individuals and do not understand that they are human beings. According to Professor Brookshire, a political science and anthropology professor at Humboldt State University, these

Get Access