Asthe debate rages over the withdrawal of British and US troops in Afghanistan, there are those who argue that the appalling treatment of women under the Taliban is a peripheral issue. They claim that the fate of Afghan women such as 18-year-old Aisha, whose nose and ears were sliced off as retribution for running away from her husband’s home, is horrific, but irrelevant. They are wrong. Women’s equality must be at the front and center of the discussion if there is to be a hope of restoring peace and prosperity to war-torn nations such as Afghanistan.
The damaged but still hauntingly beautiful face of Aisha, which caused such a sensation when printed with the words “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan” on the front of Time magazine, is a symbol of the brutalization of women, but it is also a symbol of a brutalized society: Her mutilation did not take place in a cultural vacuum. It is impossible to imagine a society that sanctions violence against women without also dehumanizing men.
When women are maltreated and when they are deprived of economic power, it creates a breeding ground for future terrorism. Zainab Salbi, an Iraqi-born campaigner on behalf of women in countries devastated by war, argues that if young men and their families are hungry, they will fight for whoever will pay them.
“Wars are not only about armies and bombs, but about economic instability,” Salbi said.
So long as Afghan women are kept in terrified servitude and poverty, peace for that country is likely to remain a pipe dream, let alone any hope of prosperity. However, it is not just Afghanistan; the same is true for women in other parts of the developing world. They are not all vulnerable to such hideous cruelty, but entrenched inequality is trapping families and communities in a cycle of dire impoverishment that has worsened as a result of the financial crisis.
More than two-thirds of the 1 billion people surviving on less than US$1 a day are female. The credit crunch, which in the West has barely curtailed our luxuries and our lifestyles, has had a devastating effect on farmers in the developing world and the majority of them are women. Female agricultural workers plant, harvest and process 60 to 80 percent of the food for those communities, mainly at a subsistence level.
These women, whose menfolk often leave to seek work or to join armed conflicts, have been hit by soaring fuel and fertilizer costs. They lack access to credit, they own only 1 percent of the land and, according to the UN, their subordinate role acts to “the detriment of their own development and that of society as a whole.”
In other words, female inequality results in less food being grown, less income and more hungry children.
The education of girls has been sacrificed in Afghanistan, and again, the problem is more widespread. The World Economic Forum (WEF) says girls are being pulled out of school and sent to work to earn money for their families as a result of the credit crisis. This is, as the WEF says, a disaster in the making for struggling economies.
Educating girls is an investment that continues to produce benefits down the generations. Mothers who have attended school are more likely to recognize the value of learning for their children, as well as being more aware of health and nutrition, leading to lower maternal and infant mortality rates. Investing in a girl’s education can produce exponential rewards, but a poor country with uneducated women is likely to stay poor.
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