Perhaps you have read about violence committed against Afghan women in media reports, but the one I’m about to tell you is the worst I’ve ever heard of in Herat province.

They are on the job from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., picking apart dirty wool and boiling sheepskins with all kinds of contaminants in it, with bare hands. They earn about 100 Afghani (or $2) per day.

Death notices are never issued for women, nor is anyone ever invited to a woman’s funeral. Her name will never appear on her tombstone. Yet men in Afghanistan have many details about them etched onto their graves.

There were no policewomen working in the traffic department. The visitors to the traffic department were all men so no women worked there. But the
department needed help.

A few days earlier the children saw some toys they liked, but she hadn’t enough money to buy them. She was thinking about how glad her children would be with new toys when a powerful noise shattered her thoughts.