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We
inform about the seclusion of women, known as purdah, in
Afghanistan
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With
this newsletter we try to make an attempt to describe the
seclusion of women, which is the norm today in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s restriction on women have been the major bone of
contention between the outside world and the Taliban more than
other human rights violations.
“The
position of women is one of the hottest controversies of Afghan
society today. Any modernization of women's conditions to date has
been the result of government action. Improvement of their status
in legal and social terms has been seen by traditionalists, who
have had a strong impact on Afghan society for decades, as an
undesirable Western, non-Islamic influence. It has been perceived
as a threat to tradition, which would cause unrest in family and
community life. Women's participation in public life, in formal
education and in the labor force, has therefore been strongly
resisted. Consequently, any improvement of their status that has
been introduced by small enclaves of progressives has been met by
a corresponding counteraction by traditionalists” (Hanne
Christensen).
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The
seclusion of women
The following
abstract about the seclusion of women, known as purdah (literally ‘curtain’) has been written by Hanne Christensen four years before the
arrival of the Taliban. We are publishing her findings in order to
contribute to a better understanding of women’s issues in
Afghanistan. Purdah is one important component of the honor code;
honor and honorable behavior being the most desired status symbol
of Afghan society.
“Purdah
implies submission, respect and abnegation. In its strictest form
it involves the isolation of the woman within the compound
and precludes her from any form of contact with men other than her
husband, father, brothers, mother's brothers and maternal male
cousins.
In
practice, it means that women are enveloped in veils day and
night, even in sleep. In some cases, the veil is replaced by a
cloak (burqa). When external errands are necessary, wealthy women
go out cloaked from head to foot, with a small-embroidered
'grille' to enable them to see.
The veil and cloak symbolize the seclusion of women. Young girls
and women walking around outside the compound make sure that their
heads and necks are completely covered. In public areas they stand
with their backs to adult foreigners. Inside the homestead, the
veil symbolizes the separation of women from most male visitors.
Purdah is a strong social institution, which is differently
applied by various age groups.
Adolescent
girls from puberty to marriage are allowed to leave the compound
on their own to collect water. From marriage until the birth of
the second child, a young woman is restricted to the compound and
dwelling and allowed to visit her father's and brothers' compounds
and those belonging to her sisters' husbands only when escorted by
her husband. Likewise, she may not attend the dispensary unless
her husband accompanies her. Women with more than two children may
make unescorted trips to visit family members or neighbors or to
attend the health facility. After the age of menopause, women are
again granted the liberty to move around the area unaccompanied.
Thus, purdah in its strictest form applies to young married
women.
Purdah cannot be enforced without the cooperation of men.
Boys and men warn the women of their compound whenever an adult
male approaches it and make sure they are not visible to the
visitors, before they are allowed to come in. Boys are taught by
both their mothers and fathers to respect the seclusion of women
and not to enter a compound as adults before the householder or
his replacement has explicitly granted them permission.
When closely related visiting adult males present themselves at
the compound, the host's wife and other young women (frequently
his unmarried sisters) remain in the house and cook for them.
Eventually, these women may form a separate listening group during
subsequent discussions, also in case the visitor is led into the mehmankhana,
screening themselves with their veils. They may also
communicate with the visitors in whispers through their veils. The
same happens when one adult male compound member visits a
neighbor’s dwelling. When other male groups approach the
compound, these visitors are either led into the mehmankhana or
young girls withdraw from the host's dwelling.
Purdah
is also applied in interaction with other women. Younger ones, for
example, extend their.
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For
the first time Terre des hommes – Afghanistan organized a
gender training for female and male colleagues – working in two
different parts of Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan.
The awareness training has been facilitated by the
Gender Coordinator of Swedish
Committee for Afghanistan.
The gender training is seen as a first step to develop gender
awareness within the organization in order to develop a gender
policy and to sensitize staff in the field of community (ie male
and female) participation.
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veils
in front of them, hiding their faces, in order to honor older
women, such as, for example, their husbands' paternal aunts.
On occasions when women feel insulted by male relatives or their
husbands, purdah is used as a refuge. In such cases, the
women withdraw to the kitchens or stand with their backs to the
men. A newly married woman may also practice avoidance behavior to
indicate disapproval of strong emotional relationships between her
husband and his sisters, or to express a general aversion to her
new family.
Afghan
women respondents practicing purdah are unanimously in
favor of it. They feel protected by it and find that it ensures
them privacy and the right to withdraw from unpleasantness.
Without exception, they feel revealed if they do not observe purdah.
Although to outsiders it seems to limit their personal freedom
and physical mobility , they themselves see no restriction. They
think that they have a large measure of control over their freedom
and feel that they can go everywhere they want to. They are
convinced that they can persuade their husbands to let them go
further away than the nearby compounds, if need be. None of the
women found that purdah restricted their work and, contrary
to what an outside observer might think, the women do not believe
that purdah locks them up in their own separate universe;
it merely keeps out men.
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What
is gender?
In
the social sciences, the term “gender” has been introduced to
refer to differences between men and women without strictly
biological connotation, socially constructed differences to the two
sexes although they are not caused by biological sexual differences.
Gender relations are the rules, traditions, and social relationships
in societies and cultures which together determine what is
considered as “feminine” and “masculine”, and how power is
allocated between, and used differently by, men and women.
Gender
awareness involves understanding that gender inequality, being
socially and historically determined and constructed, can be
changed.
The present focus on the gender issue is called gender and
development approach (GAD). It recognizes that an analysis of gender
relations which deals only with women is incomplete; and that the
focus has shift towards the unequal division of labor, power, and
resources between men and women in societies.
From gender and organizational change, bringing the gap between
policy and practice,
M. Macdonald, E. Sprenger, I. Dubel, 1997
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Purdah
as
an institution is rationalized in a number of ways. Many Afghans
think that purdah originates in Islam and there are passages
in the Koran which can be interpreted to support seclusion and the
veiling of women. The fact that the Koran prescribes that women
remain in their homes, to cover part of their bodies with a veil,
and that the Prophet's wife is to be addressed from behind a curtain
is interpreted as Koranic support of purdah.
In reality, however, purdah is much older than that. It was already
practiced in ancient Greek town cultures and by the later Christian
communities in the Byzantine and Zoroastrian cultures in Iran.
Arabian crusaders migrating between these areas
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“I
have been wearing a burqa and I have been engaged in
religious teachings with my other sisters since the
communist times. Nothing has changed except that the
controls are now tighter about wearing a burqa and women’s
mobility.”
“What good does it to me to walk around bare faced? We are
from around Kabul and we never had freedom to dress as we
wanted and go where we wanted. We cannot accept this freedom
anyway. My mother always wore a burqa.”
In Take Our Words Abroad.
Sippi Azerbaaijani-Moghadam; October 2000
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and
Afghanistan in the centuries following the death of Prophet Mohammed
are assumed to have taken on the custom as a cultural loan and
transmitted it to the Afghans.
Purdah is also interpreted differently by them. Pashtun are
noted for regarding both men and women as lustful, as tempting each
other and for seeing the separation of women as an effective means
of avoiding mutual temptation. Purdah is regarded as a
safeguard for women against physical attacks from men who are not
related to them. It is considered as a kind of protection for
threatened communities against a dangerous and unpredictable world,
which safeguards the security and privacy of the women.
But it can also be seen as a mechanism of male control over women's
movements and participation in societal institutions. There are
undeniably fewer to challenge those who participate in public life,
if the number of participants is limited by exclusion of half the
adult population”
Hanne Christensen in “The Reconstruction of Afghanistan –A
chance for rural women. United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development, Geneva, 1990.
The
Destruction of the Large and
Small Buddha
The
colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan were one of Afghanistan’s most
impressive cultural sites and, towering to heights of 38 and 55
meters, were among the largest images of the Buddha ever created.
Carved out of a sheer rockface overlooking Bamiyan river, they
dominated a valley which has been Muslim for over a thousand years.
Afghan
News
Following news
are quoted from “The News”, published in Pakistan:
19 February: Afghanistan’s Taliban soldiers are gearing up for
more attacks against the opposition after retaking Bamiyan city in
the central highlands, officials of the ruling militia said on
Sunday.
20 February: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia on Monday
angrily dismissed a US-based human rights group’s allegations that
some 320 civilians were massacred following recent battles in
central Bamiyan province.
21 February: About a million people are threatened by famine in
Afghanistan and a catastrophe could occur unless large-scale aid
arrives quickly, a top United Nations official warned here Tuesday.
25 February: Taliban authorities publicly hanged two married women
and flogged 9 other men and 2 women for committing adultery, Afghan
sources said on Saturday.
26 February: An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the open-ended Richter
scale rocked many places in Pakistan and Afghanistan Sunday morning.
However, no casualties were reported.
27 February: Afghanistan’s Taliban ordered the destruction of all
statues, including the world’s tallest Buddha. The order came from
the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar who issued a
decree declaring statues, including the ancient Buddhas, as
insulting to Islam.
28 February: The United Nations cultural agency Unesco
appealed to the Taliban on Monday not to destroy all statues in the
war-ravaged country, which include unique ancient Buddhist
monuments.
2 March: Using everything from tanks to rocket launchers, Taliban
troops began the destruction of all statues in the country,
including two 5th-century statues of Buddha, carved into
a mountainside in central Bamiyan province.
3 March: More than 260 people have died in displacement camps
in northern Afghanistan where 117,000 people are living in miserable
conditions, UN officials said Friday.
5 March: United Nations Special Envoy to Afghanistan Francesc
Vendrell has conveyed to Taliban the offer of New York’s
prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art to save the cultural relics
of Afghanistan and to remove at all cost all moveable sculptures
from Afghanistan, diplomatic sources told the News here on Sunday.
6 March: A Taliban commander in Afghanistan narrowly escaped an
assassination attempt Monday when several gunmen opened fire on him
from a car as he returned home from a local mosque, residents said.
12 March: The destruction of the two massive Buddha statues in
Afghanistan’s central Bamiyan province, confirmed by Unesco, was
completed on Thursday with dynamite, an official source confirmed
here Monday.
15 March: The Taliban authorities on Wednesday ordered closure of
the BBC office in Kabul for its alleged biased reporting of the
issue concerning destruction of statues in Afghanistan.
16 March: Hundreds of famine-hit families in northeastern
Afghanistan are heading for Pakistan amid unconfirmed reports of
hundreds of deaths in the remote region, opposition sources said
Thursday.
18 March: Five persons were killed and at least six sustained
injuries in Kabul on Saturday afternoon in an explosion in a
motorcar filled with explosives.
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Published
by:
Terre des hommes Liaison Delegation Office
P.O.Box 729 UT
Peshawar
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Email: tdhkabul@brain.net.pk
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All
information from: “The News” published in Pakistan
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