Anakngtaliban

When I watched the legendary Zenaida Amador read some of Eve Ensler's lines in a Vagina Monologues staging less than a decade ago, I thought that being confined to a 'burqa' was the worst thing women in Afghanistan were subjected to under the ultra-conservative Taliban rule. I was wrong. Being covered with an enveloping outer garment that leaves one with a hampered vision and totally without peripheral view, it turns out, is a much desirable circumstance compared to what Bibi Aisha went through.

There are apparently more inhumane ways the narrow-minded rulers did to women. This is one of the worse. Read on and weep, thanking the gods that we are far away removed from such monstrosities.



The Plight of Afghan Women: A Disturbing Picture



I was quite taken aback when I saw the picture in the cover of Time. I haven't taken a sip of my coffee but I was jolted awake by the photo - in a way perhaps much more intense than caffeine normally do to my system. After reading through the various Time articles on her, I googled her and this is her story.






The Grossman Burn Centers Provides Care and Hope for Bibi Aisha from Afghanistan

At 16, her father promised her hand in marriage and she was handed over to a large family, who she claims were all members of the Taliban in Oruzgan province. "I spent two years with them and became a prisoner," she says. Tortured and abused, she couldn't take it any longer and decided to run away. Two female neighbors promising to help took her to Kandahar province. But this was just another act of deception. When they arrived to Kandahar her female companions tried to sell Aisha to another man. All three women were stopped by the police and imprisoned. Aisha was locked up because she was a runaway. And although running away is not a crime, in places throughout Afghanistan it is treated as one if you are a woman. A three-year sentence was reduced to five months when President Hamid Karzai pardoned Aisha. But eventually her father-in-law found her and took her back home. That was the first time she met her husband. He came home from Pakistan to take her to Taliban court for dishonoring his family and bringing them shame. The court ruled that her nose and ears must be cut off. An act carried out by her husband in the mountains of Oruzgan where they left her to die. But she survived. And with the help of an American Provincial Reconstruction Team in Oruzgan and the organization Women for Afghan Women (WAW), she is finally getting help. The United Nations estimates that nearly 90 percent of Afghanistan's women suffer from some sort of domestic abuse. "Bibi Aisha is only one example of thousands of girls and women in Afghanistan and throughout the world who are treated this way. Aisha is reminded of that enslavement every time she looks in the mirror. But there still times she can laugh. And at that moment you see her teenage spirit escaping a body that has seen a lifetime of injustice.

“To know that so many can breath easier and live a better life because of your support is to know that we have all succeeded. The gift truly does belong to the giver.”


- Rebecca Gray Grossman, Chair – The Grossman Burn Foundation