WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN - WOMEN'S PHOTOS: VEILED
REBELLION
Afghan
women suffer under the constraints of tribalism, poverty, and war. Now they are
starting to fight for a just life.
Photograph by Lynsey Addario
In Labor on the Road
I saw two women on the side of the mountain, in burkas and without a man. In
Afghanistan you seldom see an unaccompanied woman. Noor Nisa, about 18, was
pregnant; her water had just broken. Her husband, whose first wife had died
during childbirth, was determined to get Noor Nisa to the hospital in Faizabad,
a four-hour drive from their village in Badakhshan Province. His borrowed car
broke down, so he went to find another vehicle. I ended up taking Noor Nisa,
her mother, and her husband to the hospital, where she delivered a baby girl.
My interpreter, who is a doctor, and I were on a mission to photograph maternal
health and mortality issues, only to find the entire story waiting for us along
a dusty Afghan road.
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