A number of suicides have occurred in Mazar e Sharif, once a teeming outpost of US troops and other military allies.
Soon those troops will be gone. Women in Afghanistan are already fearing the worse. For more than a decade women have enjoyed a relative freedom thanks in part to the presence of foreign forces and the fact that Taliban soldiers have been rooted out of the area.
But as the withdrawal nears, the Taliban are already taking positions nearby. Women know it's only a matter of time until they lose even the semblance of freedom they now enjoy.
Some women are not waiting for that day: they are committing suicide now. They cannot fathom a life without the ability to live in the way they have for more than a decade.
A young woman by the name of Fareba Gul put on her traditional burqa, something unusual for her, and drove to the Blue Mosque. After she arrived, she swallowed one of the most toxic insecticides on the market, Malathion. Then she set herself in a frantic run towards the white doves that were pecking at the ground where visitors leave food. Shortly thereafter she collapsed. Foam poured out of the mouth as she yelled for help. One hour later, at the hospital, she died. Her sister Nabila, 16, died the same day in the same hospital.
Although behind the motive for the double suicide lies a story of love, the more complicated question is : will there be more like Fareba and Nabila when the troops leave?
Mazar e Sharif has become a focal point of what the destiny of Afghanistan might turn out to be. As the threat of troop withdrawal becomes real, many women know that they will have to go back to more traditional ways, and they are torn between the life they have come to enjoy and the more austere ways they know they must return to.
In Mazar e Sharif girls can go to school, watch tv, and go on the web. But some of the old traditions persist. Arranged or forced marriages, domestic violence, and many other limitations to their freedom are still a reality in Mazar e Sharif. Suicide then, in a twisted way, is a reiteration of their existence, of their will.
Fareba, furthermore, was far from being poor or uneducated. Fareba was going to be a lawyer, and her sister Nabila a journalist. Both wore hijabs, but not burqas.
But suicides continue. A local doctor, Khaled Basharmal says that on one Friday alone, they recorded 8 suicides.
More than 200 cases have occurred since March, in fact, in that city alone.
Depression is setting in at such a rate that the local hospital has a hard time treating all the girls that are showing up. Some of the women come in bruised and bloodied. Some of them are very young, almost children.
Some of the woman who end up at the hospital are women who had found a way out of their miserable conditions through employment for local NGOs or other similar outfits. Now that the work is gone, they have no prospect but to accept the husbands chosen for them. Some are married, and they now have to return to an existence in which they no longer have any say.
Soon after the invasion, girls were allowed to go to school. Many woman were considered to be equal to men. That however, goes against tradition. Even more, it goes against the rigid interpretations of many scholars. That interpretation will again be employed to dictate women's roles and rights once the Americans leave.
Even before they are gone, the signs are ominous. Women are now being imprisoned for moral crimes at a much faster pace. The legislation outlawing violence against women was set aside earlier this year, signaling a return to the past, or maybe some sort of compromise to the Taliban, who many suspect will attempt to return to power once the foreigners are gone. Domestic violence cases will no longer be prosecuted without that law.
If indeed the Taliban returns in much the same role it had before the invasion, suicides will skyrocket. Even if there was not a lot of freedom, women knew that they were somewhat protected from violence. Now they will have nothing to save them.
Source : Spiegel Online/ 7.25.13
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