“What are you here for?” asked BBC’s Lyse Doucet a prisoner in Afghanistan’s only women’s prison. “Bad character,” she replied. She didn’t explain it. For a woman, “bad character” can mean anything.
The report on last week’s Newsnight programme was sad. The story behind it is terrifying.
The prison is beautifully called Badam Bagh, or Almond Garden. Until 2008, when it was built with Italy’s help, Afghan female prisoners were held in the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison. A horrible place already, it was even worse for women, who were raped and otherwise abused by male prisoners.
Almond Garden means that Afghanistan’s women prisoners now have their own building with sewing machines and computer classes to keep them busy, and they are much safer than before. Big enough to accommodate 350 people, the prison is home to some 150 women and their children.
According to the UN, half of the women held in prison in Afghanistan are there for “moral crimes”. Now, a moral crime is not murdering someone you don’t like or stealing just for the fun of it.
A moral crime can be running away from your abusive husband, refusing to marry a guy you don’t love, or being raped. (Yes, they rape you and you go to prison for that.) Any kind of behaviour that is seen as putting a shame on your family is also a moral crime. Bad attitude, in general, is a very bad moral crime.
“In another country, a lot of these women would have been considered as victims, not perpetrators,” said Christine Oguz, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. But here they are, forcibly held in the Almond Garden, missing out on education, their freedom restricted, children traumatized, future very, very blurry. Themis, the goddess of law and order, is too blind to see them.
However, given the reasons many of these women end up in jail, isn’t a state-operated prison a better alternative to a husband-regulated one? In the state prison, women can talk to whoever they want, and they don’t have to fear the punishment for, as an example, riding a taxi with a male driver. They are protected from family vendettas, angry husbands and rape. So which is worse? Al-Jazeera video on this one:
In December 2002, Human Rights Watch posted an article called “Afghanistan’s Women Still Need Our Help.” It ends with a moral dilemma: “Many U.N. and development agencies too readily accept culturally relative arguments about women and girls, somehow giving higher priority to tradition than rights.”
Eight years on, the title of the article still applies. How much longer until the “still need” can be changed to “no longer need”?
Photos: sand storm by Dirk Haas on AfghanistanMatters, worried eyes by US Air Force TSgt Laura K. Smith on isafmedia, all via flickr on CC.
What can be worst than that? You get raped and you go to prison for that. Interesting post, Giedre. The photos are equally interesting.
Add to that the “shame” that comes with being raped, and the “shame” of being sent to prison… These women are made to pay for all the ills of the society.
Hi Giedre,
Liked it very much (the photos too, since I checked the links in the end) but some doubts still remain bubbling in my mind. I know there is the Morality Police in Iran, where the situation you described is even worse for women than Afghanistan, but does it exist in there too? I know it was sown by Taliban, however, even now, when Taliban had some terrible defeats, although still spreading over again, does it persist ? How come? As far as I know, they are not a theocracy in Afghanistan. Are they?
I’m overwhelmed, shocked by this…
Ahhhh Giedre this issue is very interesting indeed but very very…sad? I used to get so frustrated with women inequality in muslim society…but then again it is another culture, and now I understand that. There is a point where we can only criticise these type of issues, and I really hope they are starting to change for good right now, especially with subjects like education and human rights!
I heard a discussion on about the same prison on BB4 last week - it’s really depressing to think of women being imprisoned for the “crime” of being raped, speaking to their boyfriend, getting pregnant. And while they live with their children at first, eventually they are taken off to boarding school so then they’re alone. I think what you say about them being safer in prison is interesting - in some ways it probably is a bit like protective custody. Preventing families or villages meting out their own punishment. But it’s just deplorable that they are imprisoned.
Somehow, it reminds of the book by Waris Dirie of female genital mutilation…imprisoned by culture and tradition.
Horrible. And you are not writing about the Talibans, but about the government we are fighting for :/
Thank you all for the discussion.
@Luan, I’m not aware of the existence of morality police in Afghanistan, but I think there is no need for it as tribal leaders, families, clans, husbands, uncles, fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and all the rest exercise their own police force over women who have “sinned”. Your point on the Taliban relates to what Daniel is saying…
@Daniel, good point! This issue has been raised in the UK media, too. They say that, even given all the improvements, the situation has actually worsened for women after the war was started. Taliban is no feminist, but all the chaos that is now Afghanistan is not that holy, either.
@Andrea, I see your point. Judging by one’s own standards is not necessarily a good thing, but the stories these imprisoned women tell are just terrifying! They talk about the injustices that happened to them, and recognize that it’s wrong, so wrong (see the BBC Newsnight link). Yes, it is a different culture, but that doesn’t mean that we should write it off just because of that. These women are victims, they know it, and we know it, victims of the same culture they are part of. Righting the wrongs doesn’t mean we’re undermining a culture…and even if it does, I don’t think anybody would mourn such a culture in which a rape victim is put in jail. Maybe only the rapists.
@Jodi, the safety issue was what stroke me most (after the “crime” of “bad character”, obviously). If life is prison is indeed a better alternative to life in freedom, then what kind of freedom are we talking about?! Many of these women are doomed: staying in is bad, but getting out is probably even worse. It’s just so sad, and so unjust, makes me furious! I also had this thought… If I was born in Afghanistan, I’d probably be one of the women in the BBC report… The coincidence of being born here or there geographically - what a huge difference it makes.
@Iris, indeed! Imprisoned by culture and tradition, whether in prison or out. If out really means out.