February 04, 2018

No place for women in an all men’s world

located:	Afghanistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

A crowd of men, young and old, made up the audience. Some even filming the public lashing of a woman charged with alleged adultery in Afghanistan this week with their modern mobile phones.

There was no defence, no proof presented, and not a single man charged for the same 'injustice'. These ‘flag-bearers’ of justice in Afghanistan’s Takhar province were certain, without trial, that it was the woman who is culpable of the adultery, and therefore she deserves to be dragged to a field and thrashed by them, one after another.

Overshadowed by the ragging violence in the country, the mob justice is not only prevalent in rural corners, but big towns of the war-ravaged country, including the capital Kabul as well.

Rights groups have been appalled by the short viral video circulating on social media, in which the woman in Takhar province’s Chaab district is surrounded by a crowd of men and vehemently beaten with batons in bright day.

The country’s Ghor province saw an even more gruesome mob justice not so long ago, when a woman wearing a similar blue burqa was stoned to death for alleged adultery. And, who can forget the heinous mob-lynching of a Kabul-based girl, Farkhunda, on a bright day light in the heart of the city by a group of men for alleged blasphemy.

The recurrence of such atrocities suggests that the Afghan society is not learning from its mistakes. Instead of evolving, it is gripped by outdated norms preached and guarded by men who refuse to adapt to the currents of equality and modern human rights, but who have no difficulty in adapting smart phones and technology into their lives, only to capture and circulate their oppressively ancient idiocies as testimonies.

Official statistics provided by the Ministry of Women Affairs in Afghanistan suggest that as many as 91 cases of murder, 6 cases of rape and 8 cases of honour killings have been recorded in the country in the past one year alone. And, as long as Afghans continue to treat their women and girls as objects for pleasure and pride, instead of equal human beings on every level, their collective miseries will continue to haunt them.