Afghan Women Are Better Off In Jail

And yet, another article on abused women - this time, it�s about Afghan women. These women feel they are better off in jail than being at home. Some of them are jailed because they did not have permission from their fathers to marry, others are jailed because they were victims of rape. �Women are used in exchange for debts, to settle scores, to redress complaints.� How sad when women feel lucky they are incarcerated rather than being at home with loved ones. According to Dr. Anou Borrey of the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Afghanistan, �Women die after leaving prison�. After being released, some of these women become homeless and are exploited, or become victims to relatives who punish them, while others wind up back in jail for being �unaccompanied� women. Just another lose-lose situation for these women. This article states the case of a 46 year old widow who was forced to marry her 9 year old relative (brother-in-law) because the custom demands that widows marry into their husband�s family. Couldn�t they find anyone else a bit older!

Source: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3340/context/cover/

It happens in America that 46 year-old women are forced to marry 9-year old kids* and women get jail because they have the nerve of getting raped? I'm have no illusions every American women is a happy one, but it's a bit difference in scales, don't you think?


*Poor kid, by the way.

A sad story for a sad situation in a sad country.Can we blame Afghan political,geographical,economical isolation from the rest of the world ,for this?

Many Afghan women say that they had more freedoms under the last Shah and the Russians.  The restrictions they have now are to do with culture not religion.  Islam does not support forced marriage.  Such marriages are not recognised, however an oppressive culture can recognise a forced marriage.  The history of Afghanistan is a long and complex one cannot the problems found in this country cannot be erased overnight, if ever.  What would help all of the people in this beautiful but blighted country, is to have some stability, without this the lot of women will remain as it is.

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