WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN - SHELTERS FACE
UNCERTAIN FUTURE, BUT ARE LIFELINE WITH ESCALATING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
By Frud Bezhan - July 23, 2012
The 18-year-old, standing among a handful of women in a makeshift classroom, is
attending her daily lessons at a women's shelter in
Mumtaz's face lights up as she writes her name correctly on a chalkboard. But
her smile quickly vanishes when asked about the events that led her to seek
protection at the shelter, run by the Afghan nongovernmental organization
Women4AfghanWomen, five months ago.
The shelter currently houses around 20 women, some with young children. Many,
unable to return to their homes and families for fear of being killed, have
been there for years because they have nowhere else to go.
Mumtaz says she was victimized by a scorned man who decided that if he could
not marry her, he would make sure nobody else would want to. The middle-aged
man, who reputedly had links to a local militia, had asked for her hand in
marriage, but her father refused the request.
In response, Mumtaz says, the man, accompanied by six others, broke into her
home in northern
"They took me to a hospital in Kunduz, where I stayed for about 10 days.
They wouldn't even look at me there," she says. "The women's group
brought me to
Indebted to the Shelter
Against overwhelming odds, Mumtaz survived after receiving several life-saving
medical procedures in
After months of rehabilitation at the shelter in
Mumtaz says she is indebted to the shelter, which helped
pay her expensive medical and travel expenses. She hails the efforts of women's
shelters, many of them run by Afghan NGOs and funded by a mix of private
donors, international organizations, and foreign governments.
Many, she says, continue to work despite routine death threats and
assassination attempts by the Taliban, which often claims the shelters are brothels
and a haven for drug use.
"The shelter has helped me a lot. If they hadn't helped me, I probably
would have died," Mumtaz says. "I'm very happy here. They help me in
every aspect, including food, clothes, and ensuring I have my own room. They do
everything for us."
Fear of Progress Undone
To many, Mumtaz's shocking ordeal highlights the fragile state of women's
rights in
Now, as the United States and its NATO allies prepare to withdraw from
Afghanistan by 2014, fears are rising that what little progress women have made
could be undone if the Taliban reenters the political scene.
The
country's independently run and funded women's shelters, a prime symbol of that
progress, are already bearing the brunt of growing conservatism within the
government. In February 2011, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, under pressure from
powerful social and religious circles, attempted to bring the shelters under
government control.
The draft law, which was abandoned following a flurry of Western media
attention, would have required women to obtain government approval and even
virginity tests before they would be granted access to shelters.
'We Don't Trust Our Own
People'
Muzhda Saleh, who has worked as a volunteer for the Women4AfghanWomen shelter
in Kabul for the past two years, says Afghan women are already struggling to
shed their second-class status in one of the world's most religious and
conservative countries.
"In the provinces [outside the major cities], very few people have
accepted that their girls should study, go to school, and eventually
work," Saleh says. "Many women will lose the gains that they have
made in the last 10 years. This is not easy to say, but we women don't trust
our own people. Perhaps the rights that women have now will be taken away from
them. The only environment in which these rights can be saved is when
international forces are here."
Mumtaz, too, is pessimistic about the future. Despite repeated pledges from the
international community that Afghan women will not be abandoned, she predicts
the West will lose interest and the Western-backed Afghan government will sell
out women as it negotiates a peace settlement with insurgents.
Whatever unfolds in the next few years, Mumtaz, who insists she can never go
back to her village for fear of her life, maintains she will embark on a new
chapter. Mumtaz hopes to finish school and eventually give back to the cause
that she says saved her life.
"I don't know what will happen to me in the future. I would like to study
and work in this office for women. They always come to the aid of desperate
women," she says.
"Whenever I reflect on my own experiences, I think if they weren't there
then I would have died. I had no life and my family didn't have the means to
help me and take me to the hospital. Every girl and woman in