Mar 08.qxd - Connection Magazine
Mar 08.qxd - Connection Magazine
Mar 08.qxd - Connection Magazine
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The Women’s Movement and<br />
Relationships<br />
by Joyce Vissell<br />
It amazes me how many women<br />
are still settling for less than they<br />
deserve in their relationships with<br />
men. The women’s movement of the<br />
sixties has done much to liberate<br />
women in their careers. Fathers are<br />
now helping out more than ever with<br />
child care responsibilities. Women<br />
are crowding the health clubs and<br />
marathons getting physically strong<br />
and healthy. And yet in the area of<br />
by Terri Judd<br />
Grinding poverty and the escalating<br />
war are driving an<br />
increasing number of Afghan<br />
families to sell their daughters into<br />
forced marriages.<br />
Girls as young as six are being<br />
married into a life of slavery and rape,<br />
often by multiple members of their<br />
new relatives. Banned from seeing<br />
their own parents or siblings, they are<br />
relationship, many women are settling<br />
for far less than they deserve, and who<br />
hesitate to speak their truth. Often a<br />
“yes” is said, when a “no” would be<br />
more appropriate. Sometimes they put<br />
up with certain behaviors because they<br />
are afraid to take a stand.<br />
Women who do not have an equal<br />
place in relationships with men need<br />
to take responsibility for themselves.<br />
Women need to know that they deserve<br />
to be totally loved, accepted and heard.<br />
They need to know that their voice is<br />
equally as powerful and needed in the<br />
also prohibited from going to school.<br />
With little recognition of the illegality<br />
of the situation or any effective<br />
recourse, many of the victims are<br />
driven to self-immolation — burning<br />
themselves to death — or severe<br />
self-harm.<br />
Six years after the US and Britain<br />
“freed” Afghan women from the oppressive<br />
Taliban regime, a new report proves<br />
that life is just as bad for most, and worse<br />
in some cases.<br />
Projects started in the optimistic<br />
days of 2002 have begun to wane as<br />
the UK and its Nato allies fail to treat<br />
women’s rights as a priority, workers in<br />
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relationship as the man’s.<br />
Many women are aware of the<br />
possibility of a totally equal relationship<br />
with a man, but are unaware of<br />
how to attain this. The whole key is<br />
in knowing that we as women deserve<br />
this. This is our birthright, and it is<br />
time to fully bring it into being. When<br />
women do not feel that they deserve<br />
full equality in the relationship, they<br />
will do several things. First, and most<br />
common, they will suppress their<br />
needs, making their partners needs<br />
more important. This is codependency.<br />
Second, they will take an attitude of<br />
“all men are out to use me, therefore I<br />
will avoid them.” This is the paranoid<br />
approach. The third is to use anger<br />
and nagging to try to get the love and<br />
equality they are wanting. This is<br />
trying to be outwardly powerful, but<br />
lacks love of self, and therefore is but<br />
a desperate attempt. None of these<br />
methods work. What is needed is to<br />
go right to the source of the diffi culty,<br />
Afghan Women<br />
the country insist.<br />
The statistics in the report from<br />
Womankind, Afghan Women and Girls<br />
Seven Years On, make shocking reading.<br />
Violent attacks against females,<br />
usually domestic, are at epidemic<br />
proportions with 87 per cent of females<br />
complaining of such abuse — half of it<br />
sexual. More than 60 per cent of marriages<br />
are forced.<br />
Despite a new law banning the<br />
practice, 57 per cent of brides are under<br />
the age of 16. The illiteracy rate among<br />
women is 88 per cent with just 5 per cent<br />
of girls attending secondary school.<br />
Maternal mortality rates — one<br />
in nine women dies in childbirth — are<br />
the highest in the world alongside Sierra<br />
Leone. And 30 years of confl ict have<br />
left more than one million widows<br />
with no enforceable rights, left to beg<br />
on the streets alongside an increasing<br />
number of orphans. Afghanistan is the<br />
only country in the world with a higher<br />
suicide rate among women than men.<br />
Campaigners say these are nationwide<br />
fi gures, but in war-torn provinces,<br />
such as Helmand, the British area of responsibility,<br />
oppression is often worse,<br />
though the dangers make it impossible<br />
for them to monitor it accurately.<br />
The banned practice of offering<br />
money for a girl is still rampant — along<br />
with exchanging her as restitution for<br />
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the feeling of being undeserving or not<br />
worthy of love. A woman can enjoy an<br />
equal role with her partner, be loved,<br />
accepted and heard. She must fi rst be<br />
willing to feel worthy of such love<br />
from a man. When a woman truly<br />
knows herself and therefore, knows<br />
that she deserves love and respect, then<br />
she will naturally draw that out of her<br />
partner. He will want to love her in a<br />
special way because she loves herself<br />
in a special way. A woman who knows<br />
that she is worthy will be able to communicate<br />
her needs to a man in a way<br />
that makes him want to give to her.<br />
I want to fully support women in<br />
letting go of all feelings of unworthiness<br />
and coming fully into the realization<br />
of divine birthright and value. We,<br />
as women, deserve to be seen, heard,<br />
loved and honored in our relationships<br />
with men. We will then have the power<br />
to love and honor our man, for he deserves<br />
this same special love.<br />
With all my love, Barry Vissell.<br />
crime, debt or dispute. With the going<br />
price for a child bride at £800 to £2,000<br />
— as much as three years salary for a<br />
labourer — many grooms are forced to<br />
take loans or swap their sisters instead,<br />
explained Partawmina Hashemee, the<br />
director of the Afghan Women Resource<br />
Centre.<br />
Mrs Hashemee, who has fought for<br />
the rights of her fellow Afghan women,<br />
initially for refugees in Pakistan, for<br />
almost 20 years, said: “For me the issue<br />
that breaks my heart is the forced marriages<br />
because of poverty — even girls<br />
as young as eight. They don’t get to go<br />
to school or to go out. They are told ‘you<br />
are not allowed to visit your family, we<br />
paid, now you have to work’.”<br />
In 2007, a law was passed banning<br />
marriage under 16, but Mrs Hashemee<br />
said: “The majority of people are not<br />
even aware of it. Early age marriages<br />
are increasing.”<br />
The vast majority of international<br />
aid goes directly to the Afghan government<br />
rather than non-governmental<br />
organizations. Activists are calling on<br />
the British to ring-fence some of the<br />
funding for human rights issues —such<br />
as gender-based projects — and to<br />
ensure the money reaches appropriate<br />
benefi ciaries.<br />
Mrs Hashemee said, in Kabul at<br />
least, there had been greater recognition<br />
of women’s rights over the past seven<br />
years as well as major civil and political<br />
gains since the fall of the Taliban. But<br />
it remains a dangerous environment,<br />
and female MPs, activists and journalists<br />
still live under constant threat of<br />
death.<br />
Womankind is calling for the<br />
implementation of UN Security Council<br />
Resolution 1325, which says women in<br />
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Page 14 ▲ The <strong>Connection</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> ▲ www.theConnect.com ▲ <strong>Mar</strong>ch — April 2, 2008<br />
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confl ict zones should be offered protection<br />
and recognition of their role in the<br />
peace process, as well as their human<br />
rights. Across Afghanistan women’s<br />
organizations, such as Mrs Hashemee’s,<br />
are now turning their attention from<br />
providing basic needs to empowering<br />
females, teaching them their rights and<br />
urging them to vote.<br />
Often illiterate women are instructed<br />
on how Islam views women<br />
as equal. Training is offered to young<br />
men in why sexual abuse is wrong.<br />
Communities are being “mobilized” to<br />
fi ght for and monitor women’s rights<br />
— encouraging mullahs to promote the<br />
equality that the Koran teaches.<br />
But there are no women’s rights<br />
associations in Helmand. The closest<br />
is one courageous group working in<br />
another southern province, Kandahar.<br />
Yet Mrs Hashemee is positive. She<br />
said: “I don’t want to be disappointed.<br />
We will struggle on and hopefully the<br />
government and international community<br />
will help.”<br />
In a report this month, the chairman<br />
of the International Development<br />
Committee, Malcolm Bruce MP, said:<br />
“There is a dangerous tendency to accept<br />
in Afghanistan practices which<br />
would not be countenanced elsewhere,<br />
because of ‘cultural’ differences and<br />
local traditions.<br />
“We believe that the rights of<br />
women should be upheld equally in all<br />
countries. The government of Afghanistan<br />
has a vital role to play in this by<br />
ensuring that the international human<br />
rights commitments which it has made<br />
are fully honoured and given greater<br />
priority.”<br />
Printed with permission from The<br />
Independent UK.<br />
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