Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan (15 page)

According to a United Nations report published in 2010 the number of Afghan households involved in opium cultivation amounts to 248,700, and this figure accounts for 6 per cent of the total population of Afghanistan. Many of those who cultivate opium are addicts, or become addicts, and while the precise number of addicts is not known, it’s predicted that it runs into the millions. There are various reasons why people become involved in opium production; first because it’s a valuable
commodity, second because people are poor, and third because people want to improve their standard of living.

The skill and dedication of people like Samira and her mother have brought Afghanistan an international reputation for its traditional handicrafts, but at what price? No one acknowledges the hardships women like Samira and her mother endure to turn yarns of wool into works of art. And no one thinks of the babies that are silenced by opium so that their mothers can weave sufficiently fast to meet the demands of the
tojars
and buyers.

He returned for the wedding one year later. We got married and on the first night of my marriage I did not bleed
.

This is an extract from a story that was sent to me by one of the Afghan Woman’s Hour reporters. It is about Ilaha, a young bride from Jawzjan, a province in northern Afghanistan. Ilaha’s life story was one that touched me – and many other Afghan brides – profoundly. As a newly married bride myself, I recognised the anxious desire to please a new husband combined with the concern to not offend the in-laws. I could imagine just how it was for Ilaha on her wedding night, and the fear and shame she must have felt in the morning when the family members came into the marital bedroom.

Every so often you come across a story that stays with listeners long after the programme has been broadcast and comes to influence their way of thinking. This was how it was with Ilaha’s story. Seconds after the programme ended the phone lines were busy with mothers, daughters and doctors all phoning in.

A doctor from Afghanistan called me to say, ‘Zarghuna Jan, I’ve just heard your programme on Ilaha’s life story and wanted to congratulate you. Well done to you and your colleagues for highlighting an issue that affects so many girls in my village.’

I felt ambivalent about this praise, though. As a programme-maker I was pleased to have aired such an important subject, but as a woman I was disappointed that in the twenty-first century some people in my country could still be so ignorant. It also made me realise how westernised I had become after living in London for almost seven years.

Ilaha’s home town is Shiberghan, the provincial capital of Jawzjan. It’s an agricultural region with a strong tradition of female carpet weaving. Different tribes populate the area, but it is Uzbek dominated and the stronghold of the powerful Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum and his faction – known as ‘Junbish’ – have many supporters in the north of Afghanistan, but especially in Jawzjan province. He’s currently an Afghan government military official who lives in Turkey. There are allegations of war crimes hanging over him. In some ways his political movement is quite open and liberal – Dostum has his own private television channel with female presenters on it and believes that both boys and girls should have access to education – but it is still underpinned by strong cultural values.

A young reporter called Sowsan used to send us stories from that region, but Sowsan wasn’t her real name. When she first began reporting for us she told me, ‘Zari dear, the BBC has many listeners in my home town and the stories I’ll be sending you are likely to offend many men, so I’ll have to conceal my true identity or I’m afraid my children and I could be harmed.’ The safety of our contributors always comes first.

Most women in Afghanistan, particularly those in the provinces, cannot read or write. In fact, the United Nations estimates that up to 48 per cent of Afghan women are illiterate. But despite their lack of education, Afghan women are natural storytellers, so our reporters in the field would record their stories and send them back to me in London via the internet. I first heard Ilaha’s story in early 2007. Each day, when I arrived at the cramped office I used to share with two colleagues at the BBC World Service, the first thing I’d do was check my emails. I would
then call our reporters who are based all over Afghanistan. It was the reporter in Shiberghan who told me she had a story about virginity that she wanted to share with me.

Sowsan said, ‘I’ve met this bride called Ilaha, and she’s living a life of misery and shame. She’s in a really bad way and is scared she’s going mad. When I first met her she was forgetful and tearful. Sometimes she would just sit there bolt upright and stare at me, and I think her terrible experiences have affected her state of mind. I really want you to listen to her story.’

Sowsan then went on to give me examples of relatives and neighbours of hers who had all suffered in similar ways to Ilaha, so I told her that if she thought the material would make a strong story then she should record it and we would consider using it on a programme.

Time passed and I had deadlines to meet. Sowsan’s passion and certainty had convinced me that this material would make for a good programme, but she then told me there was a problem and that we couldn’t go ahead. I assumed that there were, as usual, technical problems between Afghanistan and London.

‘Zarghuna! There’s no technical problem; I’m saying we cannot air this material. I’ve recorded Ilaha’s interview but now she doesn’t want it to be broadcast. If her family hears it she says they’ll kill her. I’ve told her that we can alter her voice but she doesn’t understand, and is very frightened. I have her story but not her permission to broadcast it.’

It is drilled into all BBC journalists that it is our duty and responsibility to protect our sources if their lives or welfare are threatened in any way, so I tried to think of a way around this problem. I suggested to Sowsan that she write up Ilaha’s story and read it herself, so that Ilaha’s identity could be protected, and a few hours later she sent me her recording.

My name is Ilaha and I want to tell you my life story. I’m a newly married bride but when I look into my heart the pain that I feel frightens me. My soul, which is pure and clean, aches from a sin I’ve never actually committed and I spend my nights weeping and my days suffocated by shame, even
though I know I’ve done nothing wrong. Why? Because society thinks I’m a shameless woman. And what was my crime?

My family arranged for me to be engaged to an engineer who was Afghan, but lived in London. We had an engagement party in Afghanistan and soon afterwards my fiancé went back to England. When I had sex with him for the first time on my wedding night I did not bleed, and at first he did not take this too seriously. But two weeks later my mother-in-law asked me to show her some sign of my virginity
.

‘
When we brought a bride into our home we were full of trust and hope,’ she said. ‘We expected to see some sign of her having bled on her wedding night.’ When I told her I had not bled at all, she got angry and demanded to know how girls can be trusted nowadays. She then told my husband that he was stupid to have trusted me and that I had made a fool of him. From that day onwards, there were terrible rows and my life soon became hell. My parents got involved and took me to see various doctors in a bid to try to prove that I had been a virgin. The doctors all said that it was too late for that, and told my parents that they should have brought me to them on the morning of my marriage. They did also try to explain that not all women bleed when they first have intercourse
.

A few days later the arguing stopped and my husband bade me and my family farewell before returning to London. He told me he would do all the necessary paperwork for my visa and that I would soon be able to join him in Britain. In the meantime, I was to stay with my mother-in-law. Her behaviour towards me was odd: she kept reminding me that she was doing me a huge favour just letting me stay with her, and said that because I was not a good woman I did not deserve a happy life. It was a very difficult time for me – I sometimes wished I was dead, but I lived in hope of being reunited with my husband, the love of my life. He was the first man I had ever been with and I loved him and looked forward to starting a family with him, but all these hopes were shattered when one day he rang me from London
.

‘
I don’t want to live with you. I don’t trust you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do what my mother thinks is best and divorce you. I’ll never be able to come back to Afghanistan because of the shame you’ve brought on my family
.’

I moved back home to live with my parents. I knew that my life was ruined. No one can understand my suffering except those brides who have been thrown out of their homes or beaten for not being able to prove their virginity. I have told my story to Afghan Woman’s Hour so that people who are cruel to innocent women like me can reconsider their behaviour. How long will Afghan brides have to go on worrying about whether they bleed on the first night of their marriage?

When I heard Ilaha’s words I began to cry, but my colleagues could not see I was upset because their desks all faced the wall, and they were busy working with their headphones on. I listened to the end of the story and cried a little more, but I tried to be calm and retain my objectivity. For many journalists the most painful and tragic stories very often make for the best programmes, so we are pleased when sad stories like Ilaha’s turn up, but this time it was different. Her story affected me personally and reminded me of a very painful time in my life. I too was an Afghan woman and I too was once an innocent bride. It didn’t matter where I lived or how different my circumstances were to Ilaha’s; the fact that I was an Afghan woman meant I too was expected to accept what was chosen for me. The opinion of the family matters more than anything. I remember how many times I tried to explain to my parents that my marriage wouldn’t make me happy, and how they told me that I would never find a man like my husband however hard I looked. It didn’t matter that I was living in the UK – a country with different values – all that mattered was the fact that I was an Afghan girl and should be obedient.

There is a moment in every Afghan bride’s life when her mother, or another older woman, slips an embroidered white handkerchief into her handbag and tells her that she must put it under her legs when she goes to bed. ‘Don’t forget!’ they whisper. But none of these women wait to answer any questions the bride might have about her wedding night. Most young Afghan brides are completely in the dark about the physical relationship between a husband and wife, so when they’re given a handkerchief they have no idea what to do with it, and no understanding
of what importance is placed on whether they bleed or not when they first have sex. The groom, on the other hand, has usually been given clear instructions that his bride must bleed onto the handkerchief as proof of virginity. A bloodstained handkerchief makes for a proud husband.

Girls in Afghanistan are not taught anything about sex, yet when they marry at the age of fifteen or so, they are suddenly expected to know what to do. There is no formal sex education for either girls or boys, and parents don’t openly talk about sex to their children, although boys tend to be a bit more knowledgeable on the subject as they talk about it amongst themselves. But more than that, sex tends to be considered as something that belongs to men.

I remember when girls at school wanted to know about sexual relations between men and women, the information we were given was limited to how we should all make sure we were virgins when we married as it would be important to our future husbands. For girls, the very idea that they might want to talk about sex was considered shameful.

On a recent trip to Afghanistan I asked women whether attitudes about the open discussion of sex had changed, but unfortunately they haven’t. Sex just isn’t talked about, and because girls are scared about being judged if they do ask about it, it tends to be something they only find out about on their wedding night.

Sowsan and I talked about Ilaha’s story at length and decided to do further research into attitudes about virginity. One of my Afghan friends said she had produced a series of programmes about sex education, and that the matter of whether a woman bleeds or not when she loses her virginity had been raised with a doctor. I was keen to hear the medical view, and my friend said that according to the doctor a woman won’t necessarily bleed the first time she has sex. Some women bleed while others don’t, and bleeding is no proof of virginity. I turned to the internet in search of more information.

The next day I managed to interview a doctor in our Kabul studio down the line. He admitted that he thought the tradition of using a stained
handkerchief to prove a woman’s virginity was misguided, but that he couldn’t talk about the matter openly. He pointed out that the whole subject was still taboo in Afghan society and if he spoke publicly about it he would lose respect in the community and his patients would leave his practice. He then refused to go on the record and so we lost the interview.