Sunday, October 21, 2012

Medieval Methods for a Horrible Reality


            My previous blog was about prostitution in Haiti and when I stumbled across another article about prostitution, I figured it was fate and had to write about it. This article was specifically about women’s rights, or lack of them I should say, under the Taliban rule.

            It opens with a story about a twenty year old woman named Mah Gul who was beheaded, yes beheaded, by her mother-in-law and her cousin, for refusing to be a prostitute. Mah’s husband is a baker and when he went off to work his mother and her cousin approached Mah and tried to force her into prostitution. When she refused they just beheaded her. While this may be maybe a quick and ensuring punishment to some people, I find it to be a little unnecessary. I would expect that she would get severely beaten or something but beheading someone just seems really medieval.

            In Afghanistan, women are forced into marriages where their husbands might force them into prostitution. A daughter or someone in a family might also be given to someone to settle debts and what not and are forced into prostitution because of that. The unfortunate thing is that under the Taliban rule, women basically have no rights in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan government keeps trying to improve the status of women by having a woman run for the presidency and also guaranteeing women a right to education in their constitution. Unfortunately, women are terrorized if they try and go to school. This obviously prevents the good majority of the women from even attempting it.

            Honestly, I’ve said it before but after reading articles like these, I am SO glad that I live in the United States. I can’t even imagine what these women go through, and how small they must feel. I would absolutely despise the fact that I was born a girl if I lived there. This thought also makes me wonder what they think about the situation. (327)

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