NEW IRIN FILM: Losing Hope - Women
in Afghanistan
Photo:
Thomas Grabka |
When Afghanistan's long civil
war finally came to an end with the fall of the Taliban in 2001, its women
dared to hope. But six years later, broken promises and a resurgent
Taliban have left their dreams in tatters |
NAIROBI, 21
June 2007 (IRIN) -
In April 2007 IRIN Films returned to Afghanistan to report on the plight of
Afghan women nearly six years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime by
international forces.
Despite notable achievements in the education
sector and the representation of women in Afghanistan’s parliament, its women
still endure chronically high rates of infant and maternal mortality, growing
insecurity and horrific levels of domestic violence.
“In late 2001 when
the Taliban were overthrown by international forces, we hoped the situation
would change for Afghan women with respect to women's rights and gender
equality,” said Horia Mossadeq, an Afghan women’s rights activist. “But
unfortunately the situation has not changed for a large proportion of the female
population.”
Shot largely in the
remote northeastern province of Badakhshan, Losing Hope opens a window onto the
lives of Afghan women. Served by few roads and even fewer health centres,
expectant women here face a greater chance of losing their lives in childbirth
than in any other country in the world.
The maternal mortality rate is
650 per 100,000 live births here.
The difficulty that many women face
accessing health care facilities means that some have turned to the medicinal
qualities of opium to quieten untreated ailments and unruly children
- prompting spiraling rates of addiction in the process.
Culture, and the attitudes of men are another obstacle women face in
their battle to establish their rights. In Badakhshan, all women must seek the
permission of their husband before seeing a doctor while some men will not allow
their wives to see a doctor under any circumstances.
In a country where
four out of every five women are illiterate, the need to educate is perhaps the
most pressing of all. Significant achievements have been made, but in the more
violent southern and eastern provinces, the policy is under serious threat.
As Taliban insurgents and other conservative forces have strengthened
over the past two years, schools have been burned down, female teachers killed
and the parents of thousands of children terrorised into keeping them out of
school.
This is a scream to the international
community to say, ‘look how much we are suffering and no one is here to
help us’. |
Horia Mossadeq, Afghan women’s rights
activist |
It is not just the militants
that leave women and girls cowering at home. Rates of domestic violence continue
to rise in a country traumatised by decades of conflict. Early marriage remains
common and honour killings continue largely unchecked while self-immolation
remains the last refuge of the desperate.
To borrow the words of Horia
Mossadeq, this film is “a scream to the international community to say, ‘look
how much we are suffering and no one is here to help us’.”