From November 25 through December 10, AWWP is  joining with the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign.

Living in Afghanistan, I have witnessed many kinds of violence during my lifetime. Afghan men always say that they respect women more than men in Western countries. This may be true, but not within their own families. In their families, they ignore the rights of their wives and daughters. If they speak out publicly about women’s rights, this is not their real face.

Please contribute your support to women in Afghanistan. Remember Aisha, the girl whose husband cut of her nose and ears for attempting to flee abusive inlaws. But she lived. Remember Zakia Zaki, the director and owner of Afghan Radio Peace, who was shot and killed on June 6, 2007, in front of her own young son. She had criticized warlords who warned her to change her programming. And remember the twenty-five women who have been killed from domestic violence in 2011 already in Herat province. I write this poem for them.

Stop Violence Against Women

You enjoy your full rights…
Now I want to enjoy mine
I am a human
You must help me.
Stop violence against me.

Do not tell me you are weak.
You are strong enough to beat me, to blame me for being a woman
You try to buy me with your money,
Or exchange me as baad to solve an argument
This is your job: allow me to go to school,
Let me work for my community,
Permit me to choose my life partner
Stop violence against me.

This is what you must do:
When a woman reports sexual abuse to police,
Do not call it adultery; protect her and arrest the criminal
Stop the violence against her.

Forced marriage is violence,
Exchanged marriage is violence,
To be denied financial resources is violence,
Harming my emotions is violence,
Ignoring my rights is violence.

Many women are together with me
Working to stop violence in our world
When you harm women
You damage yourself and our country
Stop Violence
Stop Violence

Stop Violence.

By Seeta

Recently, a woman from another nonprofit organization and I flew over the highest mountain in Afghanistan to reach Ghōr, a central-northwest province still controlled by Taliban. Everything was nice and quiet as we crossed the mountain, though we had concerns because we were going to a place where many women and children suffer from violence and illiteracy.

Ghōr has ten districts, with its capital in Chaghcharan. People in Ghōr love guests and are very hopeful for their future, but with Taliban controlling the area, women like me cannot work there. To do so would mean losing our lives.

When I reached my destination, the weather was nice. The land was dusty with only a few paved roads, but there is a river with clean water, and I could see dozens of women washing their rugs and carpets.

At the Department of Women’s Affairs, I was meeting with the director when someone knocked on the door. A young woman with a baby girl entered, wearing warm clothes despite the summer heat. One of her hands was injured. She had no medication and was using her other hand to care for her daughter. She sat and shared her story.

“I have a seven-year-old son,” she said. “He threw a stone into my brother-in-law’s house, and my brother-in-law got very angry and beat me. ‘Why did your child do this? It’s your fault,’ he yelled at me.

“He broke my hand and would not let me go to the hospital. I used my scarf to protect my hand from pain, but it gets more painful each day. I asked my father to bring me somewhere to help me, so he brought me here.”

The department sent her to a hospital and provided a letter to police asking them to arrest her brother-in-law.

It pains me that today an Afghan woman has to care for her baby under these conditions, with one injured hand and no one to help her. She must have been doing the cooking and washing clothes as well.

With the violence that has become common in uneducated families, it does not matter if a woman is sick. If an ill woman wants to rest, her in-laws will call her lazy and suggest to their son that he marry again. They will beat her until she gets up to work.

This was my first trip to Ghōr Province and the violence, while it surprised me, was normal to the women there.

The woman’s story gave me strength to work harder. I said to myself, “We always claim we work for women, but what have we done for the women who live under these bad circumstances? They suffer from violence and do not know about their rights.

“All they know is that they are born as women and should live like servants. If they are sick or injured, it does not matter. There is no one to protect them. They live in remote areas that I cannot visit because as a working woman, the Taliban would kill me. The situation is the same for all active women regarding women’s rights. So who can bring changes for these women?”

All these thoughts made me feel crazy and helpless. I realized I had to start one step at a time.

I recently went to a course held by the Women’s Affairs Department where I met about fifteen women from all over.

“What are you studying here?” I asked. They told me that they were learning about journalism.

“We want to be journalists and be a voice for Afghan women, but we do not have anything. We do not know where we should broadcast or how. We do not have computers and we do not have access to the Internet.”

I told them that the Afghan Women’s Writing Project is a place to broadcast your stories and share the woman’s voice, and that I would do my best to get them a computer. I talked to them about AWWP and shared my experience with them.

Six were very interested and gave me their biographies. “I will try to help but I am not sure what will happen,” I told them. “I’m not sure when I can get you a computer and Internet access.” I told them I would try to come to see them for a week and work with them and help them understand women’s basic rights in Afghanistan.

My time in Ghōr passed too quickly. When it was time to say goodbye, several women came with me to the airport gate and shook my hand. “Please do not forget us,” they said. “We are waiting for you.”

I wanted to stay. But I had just five minutes until departure time. I passed through check-in and got to the airplane.

Up in the air, I passed over the mountain again. But it did not appear as the same mountain. It was still the tallest mountain, and I was still awe-inspired. However, that awe was tinged with sadness. Each time I glanced out the window and saw the enormous lovely peaks, I remembered the young woman with the broken hand and weak voice.

I also remembered the others who had similar stories about their inability to complain when forced into arranged marriages, when beaten by their husbands, when sick with no one to care for them. I thought of the thousands of other acts of violence. I saw this mountain as the challenges women of Ghōr suffer. They had a long way to climb. I would be back again to help them climb this mountain.

By Seeta

Photo of a family in Ghōr Province by Vilius Džiavečka

One day, alongside the road,
I saw a woman, with water in her hands.
I was in the car, with air conditioning, but still I felt warm,
but that woman, she must bring water from at least 100 meters.
I looked at the future of Afghan women—
We call for changes, we claim we’ve made changes,
but I look to the life of that woman in the village.
She has to bring water, collect wood
no matter if it is hot or cold for her,
she has to do it because she has children.
Children need water and food,
she is a poor woman like many other women,
she does not have an umbrella like rich women to protect herself from the sun,
she does not have sunglasses to protect her eyes,
she does not have new shoes to cover her feet completely.
The small economy of her family, violence, and hard living are what she has.
Her children are deprived of education,
her husband, when he cannot find a job, returns home and beats his wife.
Who is responsible for all of this hardship for Afghan women?
Our leaders fight, our parliament members fight against each other.
Who will think about these women and children?
No, no, and no answer to my question
because everyone cares about their own, their position.
There are many victims and the victims are women—
Women, Women, Women, Women, Women, Women—
but stop thinking about tribes, ethnicity, and gender.
Think about all Afghans.

By Seeta

Photo: Sayaed Jan Sabawoon (RFE/RL)

A long time ago I hoped to visit the USA, but I always thought that it was a dream that may or may not come true. During a summer day while I was taking a nap my phone rang and a lady asked, “Are you Seeta?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Who are you?”

“I am calling from the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan,” she said. “You have been nominated to participate in the Edward R. Murrow Program in the USA.”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Send me your CV and some information.”

For me it was like a dream for someone to call a girl who is living in a corner of Afghanistan where there still had not been a chance for the women of that province to attend international programs. I did not believe her and asked her to please send me an email so I could have her email address and send her the information.

I told my family that I had been invited to the USA and everyone was surprised.

“How? Do you have to pass a test? Why have you been selected for this program?” they asked.

“I do not know,” I told them. “Maybe they nominated me because I work as female journalist in Farah province.” I was very happy but I was also worried because of our culture. “How will I go?” I wondered.

I had another problem. I did not have a passport and when I applied for one it was crowded and the passport director told me I had to wait for two months. But there was no time to wait, so I tried very hard and got it after one month. The rest of the process went very fast and finally it was departure day. I was very happy to have the opportunity to travel alone. This was a new experience for me and it was to a foreign country!

I made an Afghan friend at the Kabul airport. She was also one of the participants, but in a different program. We started our journey together from Farah to Kabul and Kabul to Dubai. We had a stop in Dubai and at the airport my friend and I got ice cream. It was so delicious. Then we started to search for the place where we could get boarding passes. We searched a lot and finally I asked a man who was Afghan, but it was a good experience because there was no one to ask us why we did not have a man escorting us. Also, there was no concern about a suicide attack or an insurgent attack.

While we waited we read and used the internet and then we started our journey to the USA. When our programs started I met new friends from other countries. I was very happy that a girl from an insecure province could get a chance to visit the United States, thanks to the U.S. embassy and its efforts to encourage the people in my province.

During my speaking engagements at the universities, many American journalists asked how an Afghan woman could work as a journalist in a community like Farah. They told me how brave I was to do this. I also got a chance to talk with my Afghan sister. She came from very far away just to meet me.

After the program in Washington ended, I had some free days, so I decided to visit one of my friends whom I knew from writing for the website. When she came to pick me up I was wondering where she would drop me off to stay, but she had me stay with her at her home on Long Island. She gave me a room with a view of her garden and a river. Everything was so nice there. Even her husband was a good cook and made our meals for us.

Soon, my time in the USA ended and I had to leave. I had a wonderful experience in America and many good memories, but I missed my people. My friends told me to stay and not go back. But I thought to myself that it would be wrong to stay when I promised to help my people in Afghanistan. If I tried to stay illegally in the U.S., the embassy would not trust Afghan women to attend these sorts of programs in the future.

One person told me that there is always a war in Afghanistan. “You may be killed one day,” he said. “You had the opportunity to escape from Afghanistan, but you lost it.”

Other Afghans said the same thing, that I did not use my common sense. They said how every day there are bombs, suicide attacks, and violence against women.

I replied that we are the ones who must stop these things. We should remain in our country to defend it as we can.

Still they say, “If we have the chance to leave, we will never come back.”

But I am happy to return home. I use the new skills I have learned from other journalists, and I had the chance to improve my English. I do not regret coming home again to my country.

By Seeta

Today I write my feelings—
I’m tired, defeated, want to rest.
But how? When I look around me,
I see the women in my country struggle.
It makes me tired, this being a woman,
born in Afghanistan.
I work, feel discouraged by those around me.
I do nothing, feel discouraged,
don’t know what to do today.
I challenge this life,
this life of being a woman.
Since I was young, I did this,
sometimes succeeded, sometimes was broken.
The important part of me
wants to be a help for the women of my country.
I understand our women.
I too am a woman here,
who suffers from her gender.
I try. I try hard to help them.
When I want to work, there is no one
to hold my hand.
The women, the women
in the remote parts of our land
expect and hope I can support them,
but where is my strength, the help I need
to help me help others?
I cannot do it alone, and this is why
I’m tired, and this is why
I cannot do anything today
for my country’s women.

By Seeta

Photo: Adam Ferguson / New York Times

On a day when it was very cold and windy, the wind brought the news of a child who was not yet in the world. Soon it would be time for the child to be born, entering into a world of expectations. Until then, maybe this child did not know where it was going, or why, or what people would expect from the child.

A family also waited to hear from the doctor. And there was a pregnant mother waiting for her child. She had not thought about the pains she was suffering, because she was worrying. She had lost two daughters already, yet she had to have a child because her in-laws were violent. That is why her daughters had died.

After one hour in hospital, the nurse came and told the mother in-law, “Congratulations! You have a grand-daughter.”

The mother-in-law said, “Thanks to Allah for giving us this gift although it is not a son. It is okay it is a daughter.”

This child was me, Seeta.

Because I was a girl, the mean words and violence began towards me at that time. When my uncle who was only 11 went to tell my aunts about my birth, they responded: “Thanks for the news, but this is not a son.” Or they said, “My poor brother, after years he got a daughter. Oohhh, daughter, daughter….”

This was not my sin or my mother’s sin. This was the sex that Allah gave to me. It is not changeable by a mother.

As years passed and I grew up, my father loved me a lot; my mother too. But the other people—my uncles and aunts and even the neighbors—they used to tell my mom she is very unlucky to not have a son.

My mother was educated and she responded, “I am young and maybe Allah will give me a son.” This became a dream. Her second and third children were born, but they were daughters.

We three sisters always were disappointed that none of us was a son, but my father said, “I raise my daughters the same as boys, even better.” People did not stop their bad words against us. Nobody thought about how if we believe in Allah, then we should accept Allah’s wishes.

As I grew up I was very sad. I even hated myself for being a girl and, in the future, a woman. When I reached seven years old, I told my father, “Dad, you should not worry that you do not have a son. I will work for you the same as a son and then people will say to you, ‘Ohhh what a brave daughter you have.’ ”

My father smiled and said, “My dear, you are right. You are also human and have power, but you never can change to a son and it is very difficult for you to do the work that a son can do.”

I told him, “Yes, Father, you are right. Possibly I cannot do the same work that a son can do, but I will be a help for you in the future.”

My father did not say anything and left me with a world of my childhood wishes. He sent me to school. I was in love with my school. In the first grade I became the third student with 95 percent marks. My father was very proud. My uncle’s sons were uneducated. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan I had to stay at home like other girls.

We left for the city of Nimroz where my father had opened a small shop. The shop was far from our house and every day I took my father’s lunch to him. After lunch he used to leave the shop so he could go to the mosque for his prayers. I was the younger shopkeeper. The other shopkeepers were surprised at how I managed the shop and sold things to the customers.

After Nimroz we left for Iran. During that time I helped my father when he was traveling to do his business. Because he was an Afghan he was not allowed to work, but I dressed like an Iranian and I was a child, so police were kind and did not say anything while my father did his work. At that time we three sisters were studying in Iran. At home we worked by cleaning pistachios to help our father.

For years and years I was a support to my father: shopping, working, and studying. I have done a lot to show my father I can do the work that a son can do.

My father was happy in front of me and my sisters. But outside the family he was not happy. His mother and brothers wanted him to marry again. When we heard this—me and my sisters and my mother—we sat at home in a dark room. We could only cry and cry that Father has to have a son.

Who can change Allah’s decision?

The girl’s family changed their mind and told my father, “You have three good, educated daughters. You can live with them.” My father changed his decision to marry again after that.

After the fall of the Taliban regime we came back to Afghanistan. We had no house and my father did not have a good salary so I decided to find a job. A project was opening in my province where they needed teachers to teach adult students. I was 15 and in ninth grade, but I went for the interview. I succeeded because I had studied in Iran. In the morning I went to school and in the afternoon I taught my class. My students were older than I, but I enjoyed teaching them, and with my salary we could have enough food.

When I graduated I did not pay attention to my higher education because of economic problems. I started work. I helped my father to buy a small house—it was ours—we could live there without problems. Then we got medicine for my mother, and then we bought a car. Not a very expensive car, but it can take us somewhere.

After years, my uncles and my aunts said, “Your daughters are better than my sons. We have sons, but we do not have a good life like yours.”

After years and lots of violence against us, now they say that there is no difference between boys and girls.

But it is very late. My mom suffered problems from all the violence; we never felt happiness because of our gender. I now have a brother too. He was born after 17 years in Afghanistan and he is three years old and so lovely. When I go to ceremonies my cousins no longer tell their friends that we do not have a brother.

Today I am happy that I was born a daughter, not a son. Some of my friends say to me, “Seeta, you are a man, not a woman.”

But I say, “I prefer to be called a woman.”

By Seeta

Photo by Martin van Asseldonk

In Afghanistan many families do not pay close attention to how they should marry their children.

Most of them think about marrying their children to someone wealthy, instead of someone healthy. Some families don’t even try to understand the man who wants to marry their daughter.

These problems hurt women in many parts of country, but I want to write about Farida, a girl in Farah Province who was sacrificed by her father and brothers to a marriage with a person who was introduced to her family as a big trader.

Farida was 15 and in the tenth grade, and she was a most beautiful, smart, and talented girl. The family never tried to find out the real facts. They married their daughter to the man who showed up at the wedding party, even though everyone understood this person had mental problems. He was psychotic. He didn’t know about women and life.

Because of this incorrect tradition, Farida went to her husband’s house. Who knows what problems she tolerated or how much pain she felt at home with a psychotic husband.

Her in-law family stopped her from going to school. She became depressed and after three years of enduring this, she returned to her parents to ask them to get her a divorce. But she never succeeded because in Afghanistan only the man has the right to give a divorce. Her husband’s family said they were Pashtun and it would shame them.

Farida told them that she wanted to live far away from the psychotic man. They pretended to agree. Farida was absolutely happy. She started back at school. But on the second day, in front of the school, Farida was kidnapped by her husband’s family members. They took her to an unknown place. No one knew where she was.

Farida’s mother was an old woman, but with tears on her face she went to the Women’s Department, the governor, anywhere she could, to ask for help finding her daughter. No one paid attention, but the women in Farah came together and demonstrated, asking responsible organizations to help bring back Farida to her family.

Their protests caused the governor to issue an order to arrest some of the members of the husband’s family. Finally they showed the place where they had Farida hidden and allowed her to call her parents.

But it is two years later and still she has the same problem. She lives far from her family with this person in Nimroz Province.

It is very unfair that we force a woman to live with a psychotic person. There is no one behind Farida. But we have helped at least to give her the opportunity to be in touch with her family.

By Seeta

Photo taken in the Delaram district of Nimroz province by Marko Djurica/REUTERS