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Suffering
in silence
20 MAGAZINE
FOR AN overwhelming majority of women, being inside the home is where society and
their husbands expect them to be. One Pashto saying makes the point: A woman should be
at home or in the grave.
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say, Dont wear it; but once they are married, their husbands insist they do.
Women live terrible lives. Its very difficult
to be a woman here. All ways are blocked. If
a woman wants to study or work or marry,
she cannot make her own decisions. She has
to follow her family and society. In Uruzgan
[a volatile province in the east and the birthplace of Mullah Omar], for example, after the
age of eight, girls and women are no longer
seen in public; and if they are, it is never
without a burka.
We need to shed light on what really is also
happening on the ground, says one Kabulbased expert. Parliament has x percent of
women, but sending women in numbers to
the political arena can be disempowering.
They may not represent womens strategic
interests for many reasons, not least that they
lack relevant or any experience. A quota system should be carefully thought through.
22 MAGAZINE
EVEN SMALL amounts of money can make significant differences in one of the worlds
poorest and most food-insecure countries. The average Afghan family earns less than
$600 a year.
Inadvertent consequences
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THERE ARE many foreign aid projects in Afghanistan that try to enable women to have some security.
24 MAGAZINE