Fleeing the Taliban

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/herbert/102599herb.html

October 25, 1999

IN AMERICA / By BOB HERBERT

Fleeing the Taliban

I asked the young woman who was sitting in my office if she had ever seen

her husband before the marriage ceremony. She said she hadn't even seen him

at the ceremony.

She was married last year by proxy. Her mother, who was dying, was desperate

to find a way to get her daughter out of Afghanistan and thus away from the

sadistic clutches of the Taliban. If the only available option was marriage

to a complete stranger from a foreign country -- in this case, Germany --

then so be it.

am Shams is 21 years old. Her nickname is Giti. In her black jeans,

white top and multi-toned Nike sneakers she looks like a college kid, not an

escapee from a country in which the status of women is so low and their

treatment so fiendishly cruel that Meryl Streep was moved recently to say

that the women of Afghanistan were being " entombed alive. "

Conditions in Afghanistan are straight out of a medieval nightmare,

horrifying for men, women and children alike. The Times's Barry Bearak wrote

last week:

" Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, along with thousands of Pakistanis

lit with the fervor of jihad, went on a destructive spree this summer,

killing wantonly, emptying entire towns, machine-gunning livestock, sawing

down fruit trees, blasting apart irrigation canals. "

A level of terror unimaginable to most Americans has been the rule in most

of Afghanistan since the Taliban took power a few years ago. But the most

consistently soul-crushing cruelties have been reserved for women and girls.

The Feminist Majority Foundation, which has been trying to bring this aspect

of the tragedy to greater public awareness, calls it " gender apartheid. "

Women and girls in areas controlled by the Taliban are not permitted to go

to school or to work. The windows of their homes must be covered or painted

black. They can leave their homes only in the company of a close male

relative, and only if they are completely covered by a burqa, an

all-encompassing garment with a small mesh opening through which the wearer

can see and breathe. Women violating any of the rules can be beaten on the

spot.

Medical care for women is largely a thing of the past. Male doctors are not

allowed to examine the female body. Women and girls are dying in droves from

untreated diseases.

Widows especially lead gruesome existences. Unable to work, many have been

reduced to begging for food. Prostitution is reported to be increasing. And

rape, forced marriages, forced prostitution and other forms of abuse have

become commonplace. Resistance has been met with savage beatings,

mutilations, abductions and murder.

Giti Shams came to my office with her aunt, Zieba Shorish-Shamley, who lives

in Washington, where she runs the Women's Alliance for Peace and Human

rights in Afghanistan. With her aunt interpreting, Ms. Shams said she was in

the 10th grade when the Taliban brought an end to the education of girls.

" My mother was worried constantly about me and my future, " she said. " And

she was very, very worried that the Taliban, which very often attacks at

night, would attack us and rape or abduct me. "

When her mother learned last year that she was dying of pancreatic cancer,

she sought desperately for a way to salvage a future for her daughter. She

managed to arrange a marriage between Giti and a wealthy middle-aged Afghan

man living in Germany. The proxy ceremony was held months before the couple

met last January. Giti was allowed to go to Germany to live with her

" husband. "

It turned out, according to Giti and her aunt, that the new husband was a

twisted individual who abused, virtually imprisoned and practically starved

Ms. Shams. The arranged marriage was part of a pattern of trafficking in

increasingly desperate Afghan women, said Ms. Shorish-Shamley.

Ms. Shorish-Shamley learned what was happening to her niece in May. Giti's

mother had died and Ms. Shorish-Shamley, during a visit to Germany, was

attempting to relay the sad news.

" I found my niece malnourished and in the worst shape you can think of, " she

said. " She was very thin, very sad. Eventually she broke down and told me

all the things that were happening to her. "

The aunt and the niece fled. Ms. Shams is now in the United States as a

refugee, telling her story wherever she can, hoping to raise the level of

concern for a situation that for so many is beyond imagining.