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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan women trapped under the burqa |
| 2001-10-04 |
One Friday afternoon, 30,000 men and boys poured into a dilapidated Olympic sports stadium in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Hawkers peddled nuts, biscuits and tea to the crowd. The scheduled entertainment? A young woman named Sohaila was going to be flogged. Her crime? She was walking with a man who wasn't a relative. Under Taliban law, she was guilty of sex out of wedlock. She was sentenced to 100 lashes, a punishment that has killed grown men. But Sohaila was considered lucky, her sentence "light," because she was single. Had she been married, she would have been stoned to death. These circuses are weekly outings for the entertainment-starved males of Kabul. For women, however, life under the Taliban is like being "buried alive," says Spoghmai, a 27-year-old resident of Kabul. This former elementary schoolteacher lost her right arm and leg in a shelling attack in 1996. Since then, Spoghmai has not been able to leave her home: She cannot walk with crutches while wearing a burqa, and the Taliban forbid women to be uncovered in public. The despised burqa is like wearing a tent, it envelopes women from head to toe and so impedes vision that some have been hit by cars; one woman was run over by a tank. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |