KABUL, Afghanistan
— Mariam was 11 in 2003 when her parents forced her to marry a blind,
41-year-old cleric. The bride price of $1,200 helped Mariam’s father, a drug
addict, pay off a debt.
Women’s Shelters in Afghanistan
Mariam was
taken to live with her new husband and his mother, who, she says, treated her
like a servant. They began to beat her when she failed to conceive a child.
After two years of abuse, she fled and sought help at a police station in Kabul.
Until only a
few years ago, the Afghan police would probably have rewarded Mariam for her
courage by throwing her in jail — traditional mores forbid women to be alone on
the street — or returning her to her husband.
Instead, the
police delivered her to a plain, two-story building in a residential
neighborhood: a women’s shelter, something that was unknown here before 2003.
Since the
overthrow of the Taliban
in 2001, a more egalitarian notion of women’s rights has begun to take hold,
founded in the country’s new Constitution and promoted by the newly created Ministry of Women’s Affairs and a small
community of women’s advocates.
The problems
they are confronting are deeply ingrained in a culture that has been mainly
governed by tribal law. But they are changing the lives of young women like
Mariam, now 17. Still wary of social stigma, she did not want her full name
used.
“Simply put,
this is a patriarchal society,” said Manizha Naderi, director of Women for
Afghan Women, one of four organizations that run shelters in Afghanistan.
“Women are the property of men. This is tradition.”
Women’s
shelters have been criticized as a foreign intrusion in Afghan society, where
familial and community problems have traditionally been resolved through the
mediation of tribal leaders and councils. But women’s advocates insist that
those outcomes almost always favor the men.
Forced
marriages involving girls have been part of the social compacts between tribes
and families for centuries, and they continue, though the legal marrying age is
now 16 for women and 18 for men. Beating, torture and trafficking of women
remain common and are broadly accepted, women’s advocates say.
Until the
advent of the shelters, a woman in an abusive marriage usually had nowhere to
turn. If she tried to seek refuge with her own family, her brothers or father
might return her to her husband, to protect the family’s honor. Women who
eloped might be cast out of the family altogether.
Many women
resort to suicide, some by self-immolation, to escape their misery, according
to Afghan and international human rights advocates.
“There is a
culture of silence,” said Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Center, which
opened the first women’s shelter in Afghanistan six years ago. The majority of
abuse victims, she said, are too ashamed to report their problems.
As recently
as 2005, some Afghan social organizations did not publicly acknowledge that
they were working in support of women’s rights, said Nabila Wafez, project
manager in Afghanistan for the women’s rights division of Medica Mondiale, a German nongovernmental
organization that supports women and children in conflict zones.
“Women’s
rights was a very new word for them,” Ms. Wafez said. “But now we’re openly
saying it.”
Women’s
advocates insist that they are trying not to split up families, but rather to
keep them together through intervention, mediation and counseling.
“Our aim is
not to put women in the shelter if it’s not necessary,” said Ms. Naderi, who
was born in Afghanistan but grew up in New York City and graduated from Hunter
College. “Only in cases where it’s dangerous for the women to go
back home, that’s when we put them in the shelter.”
If mediation
fails, Ms. Naderi said, her organization’s lawyers will pursue a divorce on
behalf of their clients. Cases involving criminal allegations are referred to
the attorney general’s office.
Ms. Naderi’s
organization has even taken the bold step of helping several clients find new
husbands, carefully vetted by the shelter’s staff. The men could not afford the
customary bride price, making them more accommodating of women who deviated
from tradition.
When Mariam
arrived at the Women for Afghan
Women shelter in 2007, the group’s lawyers took her case to family
court. Her husband pleaded for her return, promising not to beat her again.
Mariam consented. In a recent interview, Mariam, a waifish teenager with a meek
voice, said she had feared that “no one would marry me again.”
But soon
after her return, the beatings resumed, she said. She fled again.
Mariam’s
case was moved to criminal court because she said her husband had threatened to
kill her, said Mariam Ahadi, the legal supervisor for Women for Afghan Women
and a former federal prosecutor in Afghanistan.
At the
shelters, others told still more harrowing tales. For the same reason as
Mariam, none wanted their full names used.
Nadia, 17,
who has been living in Ms. Akrami’s long-term shelter since 2007, recounted
that to avenge a dispute he had with her father, her husband cut off her nose
and an ear while she was sleeping. She has undergone six operations and needs
more, Ms. Akrami said.
“I don’t
know anything about happiness,” Nadia said.
At 8,
another girl, Gulsum, was kidnapped by her father, who was estranged from her
mother. She says she was forced to marry the son of her father’s lover. Her
husband and her new mother-in-law beat her and threatened to kill her, she
said.
Now 13,
Gulsum said that before eventually escaping, she tried to commit suicide by
swallowing medicine and rodent poison.
Advocates
say governmental response to the issue has significantly improved since the
overthrow of the Taliban. Judges are ruling more equitably, advocates say, and
the national police have created a special unit to focus on family issues. But
women’s advocates say that even so, protections for women remain mostly
theoretical in much of the country, particularly in rural areas, where
tradition runs deepest and women have limited access to advocacy services and
courts.
Mariam said
she felt fortunate to have found refuge. Asked what she hoped for the future,
she replied, “I want my divorce, and then I want to study.” She was pulled out
of school in the fourth grade. Turning to Ms. Ahadi, she added, “I want to be a
lawyer like her.”
But for all
of Mariam’s suffering, her family apparently has not changed. Her younger
sister was married off a year ago, at age 9, in exchange for a $400 bride price
that helped cover another drug debt, Mariam said, and her youngest sister, who
is 6, appears to be heading toward a similar fate.