Women of Afghanistan: You are Stronger than You Know

By Mariam Hotaki, YWC Member

This blog is a platform for women and their supporters to share their thoughts and stories. Young Women for Change organization does not necessarily agree with content of all blogs.

Sahar Gul, like many other victims of domestic violence, was tortured, abused, and imprisoned by the women in her in-laws.

Yes, the women.

Female misogyny is heart-wrenching.  It breaks my heart that a woman could pull out another woman’s finger nails, burn her with irons, hit her with cables and imprison her in a dark basement for no other reason than refusing to become a prostitute. What is even more heart-breaking is that things like this have been happening for years and years.

Many women grow up with unconscious misogynist tendencies. They step on other women’s rights because their rights have been violated by society. They oppress because they have been oppressed.

But we shall put an end to this.

We shall put an end to this vicious circle of violence that is going round and round. It seems never ending, and it will never end if we do not stand together.

What the women of Afghanistan need is empathy and solidarity. We have suffered for years and we will suffer more and more if we do not stand up for each other, if we do not understand each other’s pain, if we turn a blind eye to what each of us is going through.

All we have to do is move so that we hear our chains. We will, then, see how strong we are. We will see how big our network is. We will see that we are not alone in this plight.

Alone, we might be vulnerable. But together, we are strong, a lot stronger than we know or think. We create the society; of course, we can change it.

All we have to do is break the silence.

Re-published with kind permission from Young Women For Change (YWC) Afghanistan