Lets Get Out Of Here

visitafghanistan:

Ijamal, 38

“In Turkmen families when you get married the husband’s family pays a lot of money for you, so they treat their new daughters like slaves.”

My mother warned me about this so at around fourteen or fifteen, when I got married, I used to get up at 3am to make sure my mother-in-law had enough water for her morning prayers and ablutions. But my mother-in-law used to tell my husband bad things about me so he used to beat me. I worked so hard so I don’t know why. She used to say to me, ‘We gave money to your father so now we own you and we can do what we like to you.’

As a new daughter you are also expected to weave carpets and because you have to do all the housework for the whole house a lot of Turkmen women end up being addicted to ‘tariak’ (opium). It’s meant to keep you awake and make things easier but I tried it once but it made me go to sleep. Lot’s of women give it to their children to make them quiet or to make them help with the housework. It’s really dangerous and I’ve seen lives destroyed by it.

Unemployment and illiteracy are the reason why Turkmen women treat their daughters-in-law so badly. It’s all they have ever known from their own mothers-in-law so it’s like a cycle. I don’t have a daughter and I always wanted one so I know that when my sons get married, I will treat them as if they were my own daughters and be kind.

There have been many changes in my life though as I now work with an organisation which taught me about rights. I used to be really shy and thirteen years ago, if I had a problem I would just cry on my own in a corner. Now, because I am aware of my rights I can help other women improve their lives too. One girl I helped was married at 14 and when her husband left for Pakistan, his mother kicked her out of the house. I helped get her a divorce with the Human Rights Commission and now she is married to a good man with a kind mother.

visitafghanistan:

STORAI, 22

I’m contemporary artist working with jewellery design. I was always encouraged by my family to paint and be creative and this is one of the reasons I try so hard to succeed. But it’s not easy working in the arts as a woman. I have a page of my designs on Facebook but people have started to post pictures of sex there and message me saying that my work is un-Islamic. There’s a guy I used to study with who is really pious and keeps doing this. He even told one my friends he would throw acid in my face.

I walk around the city on my own all the time without a guardian and people say stupid things or call me names but I really, really don’t care. Really. People like that are backward but if you tell them what you think about them, they would definitely try and kill you so I say nothing. It’s not really their fault; they have lived in war all their lives — their minds are warped I’m sure they are mentally sick.

I am scared of my society but art is peace for me and I don’t care if people like it or not. My father tells me to ignore what people say too. I lived in Kabul for a year and half during the Taliban regime so I know very well what the problems are that we face. But I know I can and will succeed. In order for women to succeed too we need to take small steps.

“I don’t think wearing a burkha, for instance, is oppressive. But being told to lower your voice and to stop having opinions — now that’s oppressive.”

So you have to think about ways of progressing that backward people will accept. Here, it is expected that girls marry at 18 and then their lives are over; they are just in charge of having children and the home. But I think you have to live your dreams and force people to let you dream. You can’t let people kill your dreams.

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