Posts Tagged ‘burqua’

Thanks to Gerardine Luongo for this guest post about what powered women can do for our sisters.

For almost three decades Afghan women were hidden under burquas and in homes they could not leave without a male escort. The impact of this oppression is evidenced by the horrifyingly high maternal and infant death rates among Afghan women. Indeed, each day 44 Afghan women will die giving birth.

During the rule of the Taliban (1996 – 2001), women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor and not allowed to practice medicine! Women who were emerging leaders of their nation –doctors, teachers, lawyers were forced into horrific conditions.

But despite many gains in Afghanistan, women continue to lag behind their male peers in health and education status. Today, less than 20% of girls attend school regularly, 1-in-8 women die giving birth, child-brides and the sale of women into marriage are still common, victims of rape are stoned for shaming the family and no Afghan court will condemn an Afghan man for domestic violence. We have only to imagine what will be the impact on women’s health of spending five or more years literally without sunlight and natural vitamin D.