I was so moved by this story, I had to share it. It is reprinted from this site -
hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs2986
Married at the age of four, an Afghan girl was subjected to years of beatings and torture, finally escaping to discover that within all the world's cruelty, there is also some kindness.
KABUL, Afghanistan -
Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn't find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already.
Enraged about the missing watch, Gulsoma's father-in-law had beaten her repeatedly with a stick. She was bleeding from wounds all over her body and her right arm and right foot had been broken.
She knew at that moment that if she didn't get away, he would make good on his promise to kill her.
When I meet her at the Ministry of Women's Affairs I'm surprised that the little girl, now 12, is the same one that had endured such horrible suffering. She is wearing a red baseball cap and an orange scarf. She has beautiful brown eyes and a full and animated smile. She takes one of my hands in both of hers and greets me warmly, without any hint of shyness.
"She looks healthy," says Haroon, my friend and translator. I nod. But she looks older than her years, we both agree. In orphanages — first in Kandahar, then in Kabul — she has had a year to recover from a lifetime's worth of unimaginable imprisonment, deprivation and torture.
In one of the ministry's offices she sits in a straight-backed wooden chair and tells us the story of her life so far. She is stoic for the most part, pausing only a few times to wipe her eyes and nose with her scarf.
Her story begins in the village of Mullah Allam Akhound, near Kandahar.
"When I was three years old my father died, and after a year my mother married again, but her second husband didn't want me," says Gulsoma. "So my mother gave me away in a promise of marriage to our neighbor's oldest son, who was thirty."
"They had a ceremony in which I was placed on a horse [which is traditional in Afghanistan] and given to the man."
Because she was still a child, the marriage was not expected to be sexually consummated. But within a year, Gulsoma learned that so much else would be required of her that she would become a virtual slave in the household.
At the age of five, she was forced to take care of not only her "husband" but also his parents and all 12 of their other children as well.
Though nearly the entire family participated in the abuse, her father-in-law, she says, was the cruelest.
"My father-in-law asked me to do everything — laundry, the household chores — and the only time I was able to sleep in the house was when they had guests over," she says. "Other than that I would have to sleep outside on a piece of carpet without even any blankets. In the summer it was okay. But in the winter a neighbor would come over and give me a blanket, and sometimes some food."
When she couldn't keep up with the workload, Gulsoma says, she was beaten constantly.
"They beat me with electric wires," she says, "mostly on the legs. My father-in-law told his other children to do it that way so the injuries would be hidden. He said to them, 'break her bones, but don't hit her on the face.'"
There were even times when the family's abuse of Gulsoma transcended the bounds of the most wanton, sadistic cruelty, as on the occasions when they used her as a human tabletop, forcing her to lie on her stomach then cutting their food on her bare back.
Gulsoma says the family had one boy her age, named Atiqullah, who refused to take part in her torture.
"He would sneak me food sometimes and when my mother-in-law told him to find a stick to beat me, he would come back say he couldn't find one," she says. "He would try to stop the others sometimes. He would say 'she is my sister, and this is sinful.' Sometimes I think about him and wish he could be here and I wish I could have him as my brother."
One evening, Gulsoma says, when her father-in-law saw the neighbor giving her food and a blanket, he took them away and beat her mercilessly. Then, she says, he locked her in a shed for two months.
"I would be kept there all day," she says, "then at night they would let me go the bathroom and I would be fed one time each day. Most of the time it was only bread and sometimes some beans."
She says every day she was locked in the shed, she wished and prayed that her parents would come and take her away. Then she would remember that her father was dead and her mother was gone.
But Gulsoma had an inner strength even her father-in-law couldn't comprehend.
"When he came to the shed he kept asking me, 'Why don't you die? I imprisoned you, I give you less food, but still you don't die.'"
But it wasn't for lack of trying. Gulsoma said when her father-in-law finally let her out of the shed, he bound her hands behind her back and beat her unconscious. She says he revived her by pouring a tea thermos filling with scalding water over her head and her back.
"It was so painful," she says, dabbing her eyes with her scarf and sniffling for a moment. "I was crying and screaming the entire time."
(Scars from scalding water being poured over her head.)
Five days later, she says, her father in law gave her a vicious beating when his daughter's wristwatch went missing.
"He thought I stole it," she says, "and he beat me all over my body with his stick. He broke my arm and my foot. He said if I didn't find it by the next day, he would kill me."
She crawled away that night and hid under a rickshaw. When the rickshaw driver found Gulsoma, broken and bleeding, he listened to her story and took her to the police. She was hospitalized immediately.
"The doctor at the hospital who treated me said, 'I wish I could take you to the village square and show all the people what happened to you, so no one would ever do something like this again,'" Gulsoma says.
It took her a full month to recover from her last beating. But the fear and psychological trauma may never go away.
"I was happy to have a bed and food at the hospital," she says. "But I was thinking that when I get better they will give me back to the family."
However, Gulsoma says when the police questioned the family, the father-in-law lied and tried to tell them she had epilepsy and had fallen down and hurt herself. But the neighbor who had helped Gulsoma confirmed the story of her beatings and torture.
The police arrested her father-in-law and "husband." They told her, she says, they would keep them in jail unless she asked for their release.
"Everyone was crying when they heard my story," Gulsoma says.
Gulsoma says she stayed at an orphanage in Kandahar, but was the only girl in the facility. Eventually, her story was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Women's Affairs.
Gulsoma was then brought to a Kabul orphanage, where she lives today. She takes off her baseball cap and shows us a bald spot, almost like a medieval monk's tonsure, on the crown of her head where she was scalded.
She then turns her back and raises her shirt to reveal a sad map of scar tissue and keloids from cuts, bruises and the boiling water.
Haroon and I look at each other with disbelief. Her life's tragic story is etched upon her back.
Yet she continues to smile. She doesn't ask for pity. She seems more concerned about us as she reads the shock on our faces.
"I feel better now," she says. "I have friends at the orphanage. But every night I'm still afraid the family will come here and pick me up."
Gulsoma also says that when the sun goes down, she sometimes begins to shiver involuntarily — a reaction to the seven years of sleeping outdoors, sometimes in the bitter cold of the desert night.
She says she believes there are other girls like her in Kandahar, maybe elsewhere in Afghanistan, and that she wants to study human rights and one day go back to help them.
As we walk outside to take some pictures, I ask her if, after all she's been through, she thinks it will be harder to trust, to believe that there are actually good people in the world.
"No," she says, quickly.
"I didn't expect anyone would help me but God. I was really surprised that there were also nice people: the neighbor, the rickshaw driver, the police," she says. "I pray for those who helped release me."
Looking directly into the camera, she smiles as if nothing bad had ever happened to her in her entire life.
"I think that all people are good people," she says, "except for those that hurt me."
SEND YOUR SUPPORT
The Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone team has set up an email account so that messages of support can be retrieved and forwarded to Gulsoma via a local organization. Email your message to:
gulsooma_afghanistan@yahoo.com
Author notes
Related articles/sites -
Afghanistan: Women Still Not “Liberated”
Police Abuse, Forced Chastity Tests, and Taliban-Era Restrictions in Herat
www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
Afghan Women Scarred by “Hidden” Abuse
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3543147.stm
Afghan Women Under the Tyranny of Fundamentalists
www.rawa.org/women.html">www.rawa.org/women.html">www.rawa.org/women.html
Aghan Women Still Suffer Abuse
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4592697.stm
"Women all over Afghanistan are still being murdered, raped and imprisoned with impunity." - Amnesty International
"Many people outside the country believe that Afghan women and girls have had their rights restored. It's just not true. Women and girls are still being abused, harassed, and threatened all over Afghanistan, often by government troops and officials."
- Zama Coursen-Neff
Co-author of the report and counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch
Islam and Women's Rights
By Azam Kamguian
( From www.secularislam.org/women/womislam.htm )
Religion in general and Islam in particular are women's enemy. Women's inequality is god's commandment, in Islam enshrined in immutable law by Mohammad and eventually recorded in scripture. In most countries under Islamic states or under the influence of Islam, Koran's directives are incorporated into contemporary law.
Family law in these countries generally follows the prescriptions of Koran. Veiling, divorce laws, a very young legal age of marriage, custody of children, polygamy, women's rightlessness in matters of employment, travelling, choosing the place of residence, and honour killing are all aspects of Islamic Shari'a based on the Koran and Islam's doctrine. Together with these, in countries under the Islamic states, women are stoned to death for engaging in voluntary sexual relations and are stripped of their basic human rights.
Many Western and Eastern apologists for Islam repeatedly tell us that what is happening to women in the so-called Islamic countries is not according to real Islam, and that real Islam is egalitarian. I mainly refer to the Koran. Laws about women are the most cruel, inhumane and cunning aspects of the Koran and Islamic Shari'a.
WOMEN ARE THE INFERIOR SEX
The rigid laws of Islam have deprived half of the population of their basic human rights. The male is in charge of the female: Koran 4:34, and the subjugated half is led to believe, through Islamic teachings, that the supremacy of the man is the will of Allah, and it has been predestined for women to live as submissive, obedient wives. They are forced to accept that women are inferior to men, that their testimony is equal to only half that of the man, that they should inherit one - half of the male share, that Allah doesn't want to see any women unveiled, that she may not conserve with men except her father, or her brother. The proper job and position for women is taking care of home, children and to be a housewife. The majority of Muslim women are brought up with the conviction that it is Allah's command for them to be under male dominance and their fates are interwoven with that of men.
In the Koran there are four so called neutral verses where women are considered equal to men (at least not demeaning towards women); to which apologists for Islam refer us repeatedly. Here are those:
3: 195 "Their Lord responded to the: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female, you are equal to one another¦."
4: 124 "As for those who lead a righteous life, male or female. While believing, they enter paradise; without the slightest injustice"
16: 97 "Anyone who works righteousness, male or female, while believing, we will surely grant them a happy life in this world, and we will surely pay them their full recompense for their righteous works."
40: 40 "Whoever commits a sin is required for just that, and whoever works righteousness - male or female - while believing, these will enter paradise wherein they receive provision without any limits."
In opposition to above four so-called neutral verses, there are hundreds of versed that deliberately defame and dehumanise women:
An-Nisa 4: 34 "As to those women On whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next) refuse to share beds, (and Last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): For God is Most High, Great (above you all)"
Al - Baqara 2: 223 "Your women are a tilt for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilt as ye will, and send (good deeds) before you for your souls, and fear Allah, and know that ye will (one day) meet Him. Give glad tidings to believers, (o Mohammad)"
Al - Baqara 2: 222 "They questioned thee (O Mohammad) concerning menstruation, Say it is an illness, so let women alone at such times and go not unto them till they are cleansed."
Al - Baqara 2: 228 "Men, your wives are your tillage. Go into your tillage any way you want."
"Women have such honourable rights as obligations, but men have a (single) degree above them."
"Men are managers of the affairs of women because Allah has preferred men over women and women were expended of their rights."
4:6 ¦ "And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have contact with a woman & ye find not water, then go to clean high ground & rub your faces & your hands with some of it¦"
33: 32-33 "O ye wives of the prophet! Ye are not like any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire to you, but utter customary speech And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, & pay the poor due, 7 obey Allah & His messenger.
Hadith, Mohammad's Tradition
"If a man and woman are alone in one place, the third person present is the devil."
"I was shown the hell- fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful"
"If it had been given me to order someone to prostrate themselves in front of someone other than God, I would surely have ordered women to prostrate themselves in front of their husbands¦"
"A woman cannot fulfil her duties towards god without first having accomplished those that she owes her husband."
"The woman who dies & with whom the husband is satisfied will go to paradise."
"A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel."
"Hellfire appeared to me in a dream & I noticed that it was above all people with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it towards god that they were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude towards their husbands for all they had received from them ¦ Even when all your life you have showered a woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."
"If anything presages a bad omen it is a house, a woman, and a horse."
"Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman."
VEILING
One of the most misogynist Islamic laws with respect to women is the requirement for complete veiling in accordance with koranic tenets. The wearing of the veil was instituted by Mohammad in the early days of Islam. Within about one hundred years of his death, the institution of veiling and seclusion had been spread all over the Middle East. One and a half centuries after his death, the system was fully established.
The effect of all kinds of veils is the same, the woman is rendered anonymous, a non -person, unapproachable, just a silent being skulking along. She is taboo. The Islamic head- cover mentioned in Koran 33: 59, and the curtain referred to in Koran 33: 53, which was meant to separate the man from the woman.
Why is Islam so obsessed with keeping men and women part? Why have Islam gone to such great lengths to maintain control over women?
The main reason for veiling ( hijab ) is the need for controlling women's sexuality. Veiling internalises the Islamic notion in women that they belong to an inferior sex, and that they are sex objects. It teaches them to limit their physical movements and their free behaviour. Veiling is a powerful tool to institutionalise women's segregation and to implement a system of sexual apartheid. It signifies the subjugation and servitude of women based on Islamic doctrine and Koranic teachings. Much more than a way of clothing, hijab is the manifestation of an outright Islamic misogynism and an antiquated view on women's status. It is designed to control women's sexuality much more effectively than any other religion or ideological system.
The following quote is attributed to Mohammad by a number of Hadith collectors: "A woman is a pudendum (Pudendum means the outer part of female genitalia. In this usage, however, it means "shameful thing" which, to Mohammed's mind, were one and the same) is proper to hide and cover; therefore, when a woman goes out, Satan looks at her and desire to carry her from the road." In the eyes of Mohammad, according to this quote, all male believers are potential "Satans" who might try to take unconcealed women for themselves.
Mohammad himself was one of the men who were unable to control their lust upon looking at women. Once he visited the home of Zayd, his adopted son, and there saw Zaynab, Zayd's wife, half-naked. Mohammad's obvious desire for the woman eventually led to the divorce of Zayd from his wife and shortly thereafter Mohammad married her himself.
The law of veiling is not only humiliating to women, but it is an insult to men. It is a clear indication that, in the eyes of Mohammad, all Muslim males were sex-crazed. The obvious Implication is that seeing a woman without a veil would cause the typical Muslim male to lose control and that unveiled women would constantly be subjected to unwanted sexual advances.
Veiling is imposed on women in many countries under the influence of Islam, either legally or under cultural and social pressure. During the last thirty years, hijab has been and continues to be the political and ideological symbol of political Islam, Islamic states and the Islamic movement in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Women have been the first-hand victims of this reactionary movement, and imposing the veil on women by Islamic movement and Islamic governments has been their fist bloody action to suppress the whole society. In other countries, Saudi women typically don a billowy black cloak called an Abaya, along with a black scarf and veil over the face. Morality police enforce the dress code by striking errant women with sticks. The women of Iran and the Sudan can expose the face, but should cover the hair and the neck. Otherwise, they face arrest, imprisonment, flagging, cash fines, and if they refuse it, they face knife and acid attack. Under Taliban, women of Afghanistan had to wear burqa. Political Islamic groups vigorously campaign to block reforms in women's civil rights in the Middle East and North Africa. As long as Islam secludes women from the public life, no real socio-economic progress is possible.
THE WILD AND NAKED MISOGYNY IN THE KORAN
The most despicable expression one can ever come across is that, according to Hadith, women of heaven will be created in such a way that after each sexual intercourse, they will become virgins again. What a wild and naked misogyny! What an insult to women and to humans! Here, I quote Koranic verses about Huris, virgins and the sexist nature of Islam. These are few among many in the Koran:
52: 17-20 "They will recline (with ease) on thrones arranged in ranks. And We shall marry them to Huris with wide lovely eye. There they shall pass from hand to hand a cup of wine."
37:40-48 "They will sit with bashful, dark - eyed virgins, as chaste as the sheltered eggs of ostriches." 44:52-55 "Yes and we shall wed them to dark- eyed beautiful virgins."
55:56-57 "In them will be bashful virgins neither man nor Jinn will have touched before. Then which of favourites of your Lord will you deny?"
78: 31 "As for the righteous, they surely triumph. Their gardens and vineyards and high - breast virgins for
companions, truly overflowing cup of wine."
78: 33-34 "And young full - breasted (mature) maidens of equal age, and a full cup of wine." "Then which of the blessings of your Lord will you both (Jinn and men) deny? (In beauty) they are like rubies and corals."
56: 7-40 "Owe created the Huris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hands."
55: 70-77 "In each there shall be virgins chaste and fair, dark eyed virgins sheltered in their tents whom neither man
nor Jinn have touched before."
56: 22 "And there will be Huris with wide, lovely eyes as wives for the pious." 56: 35-36 "Verily, We have created them (maidens) of special creation. And made them virgins."
40: 45 "Surely for the God - fearing awaits a place of security gardens and vineyards and maidens with swelling breasts." The tidings: 30
"The Huris are ever - young women who have wide eyes, flexing glances and swelling breasts."
DIVORCE
According to the Koran and Islamic law, a man has the right to terminate his marriage whenever and wherever he pleases. It is the absolute power of a Muslim male to repudiate his wife unilaterally at his discretion. He needs no reason for a divorce; a family quarrel or bad temper is sufficient. Divorce does not require any court, judge, lawyer, or counsellor. One phrase from a husband is enough to break the marriage bond: "You are divorced."
The Koran states: "If ye wish to exchange one wife for another¦." (4:20), giving the absolute power to the man to repudiate his wife and marry another without any formalities. In fact more than two dozens verses in Allah's scripture explain the modes of divorce (Koran 2: 226, 227, 228, 230 -37, 241, 242; 4: 19-21, 130; 33: 49; 58: 3, 4; 63: 1-7; 4: 35). According to Islamic law, when a man wishes to divorce his wife, all he has to do is to say: "you are divorced," or "you are dismissed." In the second half of the 20th century, based on some legal changes in some of the Middle Eastern countries, men are required to be present in family courts and repudiated their wives before a judge. A man may divorce a wife and call her back up to three times. After the third repudiation, he cannot take her back again unless she marries and is separated from someone else first.
Fear of poverty keeps many women locked in bad marriages, as does the prospect of losing their children. Typically, fathers win custody of boys over the age of six and girls after the onset of puberty.
A woman can sue for divorce in the Islamic court on the specific grounds, such as the impotency of her husband, non-payment of maintenance, or his insanity. Cruelty is not sufficient grounds for divorce because wife beating is enjoined in the Koran. When a woman applies to the court for an injunction of divorce, and the husband is not willing to repudiate her, the procedure can be very lengthy and in most cases is futile.
The offering of financial consideration of some sort is commonly the repayment of the bride- price. When the marriage is contracted, a sum of money is stipulated to be paid by the husband to the wife or her male kinsmen before or after the wedding. This is called mahr (bride- price), which means marriage settlement or dowry. A man who divorces his wife must pay the full amount of the bride- price. When the wife agrees to buy her freedom, it is called khula in Arabic, which means something belonging to the wife is taken away from her. "There is no sin for either of them if the woman ransom herself." (Koran 2:229) The text of the scripture makes clear that the wife is actually paying money to her husband to get her freedom. This is ransom money, reminiscent of the ancient Arabian nomad's rite, which allowed the release of the booty or captive of the raids after receiving a ransom or head - price. Thus, in Islam a man actually buys his wife when he bargains over the bride - price (mahr) and sells his wife's freedom back to her when a financial settlement is paid for by her for a divorce.
THE LEGAL AGE OF MARRIAGE
At the age of 9, based on lunar year (when a girl is actually 8 years and 8 months) she is considered an adult and has to pray, fast and cover herself by hijab and eligible to be married. Mohammad's favourite wife, Aisha; according to evidence, was 6 when Mohammad met her, and nine when the marriage consummated.
CUSTODY OF CHILDREN
According to Islamic law, woman cannot get custody of her children, even if their father dies. In the case of divorce or death, she surrenders her children to their father and/or his family.
WOMEN'S OTHER CIVIL RIGHTS
Women living under Islamic Law cannot travel, work, study, and leave their houses without their fathers or husbands' permission. They do not have the right to choose the place of their residence. Under the terms of Koranic law, any judge fulfilling the seven requirements (that he have reached puberty, be a believer, know the Koranic laws perfectly, be just, and not be affected by amnesia, or not born illegitimate, or be of the female sex), is qualified to dispense justice in any type of cases. According to Islamic Law, woman cannot choose her mate and is not permitted to divorce him. Her husband can divorce without her knowledge, and according to Shari'a, he is required to support her for only 100 days.
POLYGAMY
According to the Koran a man can have four permanent wives and as many temporary wives as he wants:
2: 3 And of ye are apprehensive that ye shall not deal fairly with orphans, then, of other women who seem good in your eyes marry but two, or three or four, and if ye still fear that ye shall not act equitably, then one only; or the slaves whom ye have acquired.
Al-Nisa 4: 24 "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hand possess. ¦"
"Also (prohibited are) women already married except those whom your right hands possess:
¦" 33: 52 "It is not lawful for thee (to marry more) women after this, nor to change them for (other) wives, even though their beauty attract thee, except any thy right hand should possess (as handmaidens): and Allah doth watch over all things."
Al - Nisa 4: 34 "Marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, four; but if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands own; so it is likelier you will not be partial."
23: 1,5,6 "Happy now the believers, humble is their prayers, shunning vain conversation, paying the poor -due, and who restrain their appetites except with their wives or the slaves whom their right hands possess: for in that case they shall be free from blame."
33: 49-51 "O prophet! We allow thee they wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncles, thy paternal and maternal aunts who fled with thee to Medina, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the prophet desired to wed her - a privilege for thee above the rest of the Faithful. We well know what we have settled for them, in regard to their wives and to the slaves¦; that there may be no fault on thy part ¦ Thou mayest decline for the present whom thou wilt of them, and thou mayest take to thy bed her whom thou wilt, and whomsoever thou shalt long for those thou shalt have before neglected, and this shall not be a crime in thee."
HONOR KILLING
Honor killings are an example of a practice that is commonly associated with Islam. It has broader root and has been incorporated into Islamic rules and Islamic law; Shari'a. It is based in medieval tribal culture, in which a family's authority and ultimately its survival is tightly linked to its honor. Muslim perpetrators repeatedly justify their crime by referring to the Koran that states harsh punishments for adultery.
Civilised humanity has slowly moved towards the equal treatment of women and the recognition of women's equal rights. Religions are one of the oldest and the most persistent obstacles on the way of women's equality and freedom. Indeed, religion is women's enemy and it is the nature of all religions, particularly Islam, to look backwards to past ancient times and antiquated values. Women will be universally equal someday. when that day comes, it will arrive in spite of all religions and as a result of a just and powerful fight against Islam.
Written March 21st, 2006
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. She chose to wear it. Her very islamic parents, fearing that people would treat her badly because of misconceptions of Islam, practically asked her not to wear it.
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