-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnUS humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.
-John RuskinEnglish critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 - 1900)
If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.
-BuddhaIndian philosopher & religious leader (563 BC - 483 BC)
The Bride Price
Photographs by STEPHANIE SINCLAIRText by BARRY BEARAK
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The girl's wishes are customarily disregarded, and her marriage will end her opportunities for schooling and independent work.
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Roshan Qasem, 11, will join the household of Said Mohammed, 55; his first wife; their three sons; and their daughter, who is the same age as Roshan.
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Majabin was given away as payment for a gambling debt.
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The Hidden Half: A Photo Essay on Women in Afghanistan
-Elizabeth Gettelman
Photo Essay by Lana Šlezić
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Twenty-four-year-old Shaima Rezayee hosted a popular music show on Tolo TV. She was strong, independent, unmarried, and she refused to wear the burka. In 2005 her sister found her dead in her Kabul apartment, shot in the head. Rezayee's brothers were charged with her murder-a rarity, as few are ever prosecuted for honor killings.
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October 9, 2004, saw the first free, democratic presidential election in Afghanistan. In the months prior, the Taliban peppered villages and cities with "night letters" warning women not to vote. In June 2004 a bomb exploded on a bus full of female election workers in Jalalabad, killing three. Still, these four women at a Kabul polling station-and 40 percent of women nationwide-asserted their new right. But, as a Womankind report summarized, "paper rights have not equaled rights in practice."
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The waters of Band-i-Amir Lake are thought to cure many ailments, including infertility. If a woman has not conceived soon after marriage, her husband’s family will often travel for days-by car, donkey, camel, or foot-to bring her here. Most Afghans don't know how to swim, so the woman is tethered around the waist as she enters the lake. The husband follows behind and, as is the custom, pushes her into the frigid water three times.
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The streets of Afghanistan are pocked with divots and gaping potholes, and there is hardly any pavement to speak of. Still, heels are the norm, and beneath their burkas many women wear bright, beautiful dresses.
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On the day of a young boy's circumcision, these girls don lipstick and their very best dresses. If the odds hold, only a couple of them will receive an education. Just one in five Afghan schools are designated as girls' schools; coed schools are banned. A third of Afghanistan's school districts have no girls' schools at all, and the schools that do exist are under constant threat of attack.
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Inside a Kabul home, a heavy curtain is all that separates a prostitute's work from her family life. Her 15-year-old daughter also sells herself, but not in the house. Too many men going in and out would alert the neighbors, and that could prove fatal.
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Self-immolation has long been the preferred method of suicide in Afghanistan, but "the trend is upward," says Ancil Adrian-Paul of the women's nonprofit Medica Mondiale. Girls as young as nine set themselves ablaze, typically with cooking oil. In Herat Province, where last year 90 women lit themselves on fire, Zahra spent 93 days in the burn unit. Her husband beat her regularly, told her she was worthless and should just light a match. So she did. She is, by some accounts, lucky: More than 70 percent of victims of self-immolation do not survive.
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Afghanistan has more than 2 million widows, and these and other desperately poor women often turn to prostitution, despite the risk of being killed by their families if they are discovered. So they remain in the shadows, beneath a double veil of tradition and shame. This woman’s husband is too old to work. She sold her daughter into marriage before the girl was 10, and now she sells herself.
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In the belief that it will spare them from their sufferings, mentally ill people are chained to the trees on a cemetery outside the Afghan city of Jalalabad. 40 days they spend on the cemetery living on water, bread, green tea, black pepper and cigarettes. The boy on the picture is 16 years old and he became mentally ill from a fever he caught at the age of 14.
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From RAWA.org
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7 year old Samia has a shocking story. She is one of tens of thousands of Afghanistan's girls who fall victim of family violence in the male-chauvinistic society where fundamentalists promote and support dirty misogynistic customs.
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Two years ago, the father of Samia raped a 10 year old daughter of Mohammad Yassin in Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan. When he was arrested, according to the customs of that area which are called “Bad”, he is asked to give his daughter to a son of Mohammad Yassin, so the issue could be settled. He gives Samia to Mohammad Omer (son of M. Yassin) to marry.
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Then Samia is taken to the house of M. Yassin where she is regarded as a slave and for two long years experiences every kind of torture and discrimination. The family daily beat the innocent child and locked her down in a dark basement. They injured her body by using hot metal pieces, pulled her hair, kept her naked and force her to stay outside in the freezing weather for hours and many other such bestial punishments.
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Finally, some people of the area came to know about the crimes being committed against the child and they decided to release her from the horrible sufferings. The people forcibly entered the house and brought Samia out and handed her over to the security officials. M. Yassin and his son ran away and the people couldn't arrest them.
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In a country where warlords and Jehadi mafia dominate the whole society and the most dark-minded fundamentalists are in power, there is no law and order to prevent such terrible crimes. Inhuman customs and family violence can easily target innocent children and women when these victims are not supported by executive, legislative and judicial bodies. In Afghanistan most of those involved in these type of criminal acts are the US-backed warlords who have guns, power and official posts so that no one can stop them.
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7 year old Samia has a shocking story. She is one of tens of thousands of Afghanistan's girls who fall victim of family violence in the male-chauvinistic society where fundamentalists promote and support dirty misogynistic customs.
-
Two years ago, the father of Samia raped a 10 year old daughter of Mohammad Yassin in Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan. When he was arrested, according to the customs of that area which are called “Bad”, he is asked to give his daughter to a son of Mohammad Yassin, so the issue could be settled. He gives Samia to Mohammad Omer (son of M. Yassin) to marry.
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Then Samia is taken to the house of M. Yassin where she is regarded as a slave and for two long years experiences every kind of torture and discrimination. The family daily beat the innocent child and locked her down in a dark basement. They injured her body by using hot metal pieces, pulled her hair, kept her naked and force her to stay outside in the freezing weather for hours and many other such bestial punishments.
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Finally, some people of the area came to know about the crimes being committed against the child and they decided to release her from the horrible sufferings. The people forcibly entered the house and brought Samia out and handed her over to the security officials. M. Yassin and his son ran away and the people couldn't arrest them.
-
In a country where warlords and Jehadi mafia dominate the whole society and the most dark-minded fundamentalists are in power, there is no law and order to prevent such terrible crimes. Inhuman customs and family violence can easily target innocent children and women when these victims are not supported by executive, legislative and judicial bodies. In Afghanistan most of those involved in these type of criminal acts are the US-backed warlords who have guns, power and official posts so that no one can stop them.
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Thanks for reading.
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