Being a Woman is a Crime

For centuries women have come forward resiliently together abdicating for the rights they were deprived of. Men were allowed to vote, own land, have bank accounts and so on, which was evidently termed as unfair for women who were not granted this freedom. Hence, millions of women from New Zealand to America to India rose up, protested and earned their fair share of rights in society. In the twenty-first century, these hardships and struggles have borne fruit, for now women are employed in all fields and are independent.

Yet, there are a few places where women have been shunned down upon and the most prime example of this is Afghanistan. There is a quote by Sheryl Lee Ralph in which she says “Just because you have rights today does not mean you have rights tomorrow” which describes the current catastrophe that women are enduring in Afghanistan almost too perfectly. Long before the Taliban rule, conditions for women were not so extremely conservative. Studying, going out and just living were not a taboo.

The Taliban however, came with an overly extreme ideology concerning women in Afghanistan. The most devastating law passed by them was to ban education for women past the sixth grade. Another calamity relating to this was that women cannot get checked by male doctors. Now in this situation one may ask, without proper education women can not become doctors, neither can they attend male doctors, so how on earth do they get basic health care? The answer to this is quite simple- they don’t.

Apart from being deprived of basic education and healthcare they are not even allowed to go outside without a male escort. As a woman it is our geographical luck to not be born in the diameters of Afghanistan or we would have suffered the same fate. There is no doubt that being born female is worse than being born an animal in this country for the animal has more rights.

The cruelty does not tend to stop here. Recently a new law has passed in which it has become legal to beat women and break their bones (however only during daytime since everyone is asleep at night and may get disturbed). This fiasco is ongoing and is not intended to stop since the Taliban soldiers are armed beasts.

Adolescent girls are sold in marriage to men twice or thrice their age, mostly for their families to just get dowry from the groom. The world can only watch these crimes. There is no proper journalism or insight which concludes how these girls actually feel since it is also prohibited to film or record a woman. They have no way of seeking help or escaping.

Not all of them have given up though. It has come forward that there are many secret underground schools and colleges run by women who in hiding teach younger girls. Some families not nurtured by this extremism even send their daughters to bordering nations including Pakistan, Iran etc in hope to live a normal life and not to be bought and sold like animals.

The world calls this Islamic, when the wise in truth knows this is anything but religion. This is a terrific culture made by man, controlled, governed and executed by man. All these men would be listed as internationally recognized criminals, womanizers who commit felony after felony. Unfortunately in their area, they are the sovereign law makers and any woman born there is a victim. Awareness can be raised but they can not be saved.  These are the same women who have the potential of becoming great scientists, doctors, teachers, leaders- yet we will never know their names, their personal struggles and what they endure by the hands of men everyday.