Gabby Martino
April 28th, 2009
6:37 pm
The talk around the world has been about the new Afghan law which tells women that they must "make themselves up" when their husbands demand it, they cannot leave their homes without permission, and they must be sexually submissive to their husbands and be willing to have sex whenever their husbands ask for it.
The world has been talking about this, and putting a lot of pressure on the Afghan President Karzai to get rid of this new law, but the very women that this is affecting, just recently found out about it. These women live in very rural areas and most of them are illiterate. When they were told about this law, they actually laughed. They claimed that most of them were too poor to even buy cosmetics so their husbands couldn't even tell them to put it on. They claimed that the law was reflective of the way that life already was, and that they already had to ask for permission before leaving the home.
Only 18% of Afghan women are literate, and one woman even said that for years she couldn't go shopping because she did not understand how money worked. A group that does literacy lessons for women said that some of the women walk in the heat for up to two hours just to learn how to read. These women want their liberation but do not know how to go about getting it. The very women that this law is affecting didn't even know about it for weeks. I think that people from around the world need to help these women win their rights, because their government is not one that is trying to help them.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE53Q2KA20090427?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
1 comment:
That's pretty crazy that these women were illiterate and so out of the loop that they didn't even understand how money worked. This country definitely needs to step their game up and give women more opportunities to get schooling and become more equal with men in their society.
Post a Comment