Today we bring you the eleventh in our Oral Stories series from women in Afghanistan who were denied the opportunity to learn to read or write. For this section, AWWP interviewers across Afghanistan asked women to talk about the impact of gender discrimination in their lives. The interviews published here were recorded and transcribed, translated, and edited in English for clarity.
\When I turned thirteen, my child was born. Big problems began to happen.
One day my elder sister said to my father, “Why do you love our brothers more than us?”
In my heart I always thought about going to school. It is still like a dream in my heart today. That was the worst violence my own parents did with me.
We were living in Iran and because of that my husband became addicted to Iranian women.
She beat me every day and she would say to me, “You are not beautiful. I only have one son and I will get him a beautiful wife.”
Achieving literacy among girls and women remains one of the big development challenges for Afghanistan today, but also one that many believe holds the most promise. In this section, the tenth in our Oral Story Series begun in 2012, we bring you stories from illiterate women about their views on women’s rights in Afghanistan.
I am not allowed to go outside the house alone; I always go with my son or daughter.
In our society, being a woman is like not being a human being.