The author witnessed the oppression of women in Afghanistan during 2 years living there. Women are forced to wear the burka, which acts as a prison that obscures their vision and limits their movement. Under Taliban rule, women were banned from activities and work outside the home. Today, despite promises, conditions remain dire for many Afghan women, who face violence, poverty, and lack of rights and opportunities. The author dreams of a more just world where men and women work together for gender equality.

1. I do not know what we can do to stop this horror, but I think that to start: you must know, the disclosure. Let everyone know how these women live . Click to advance I have lived in Afghanistan for 2 years and witnessed this atrocity. I have translated this presentation from French to English and the mistakes are all mine. Arthur

2. a garment prison

3. The HIYAB : It is a characteristic of Arab women veil. It leaves open the figure, and many women wear it as a sign of identity. The BURKA : It completely obscures the body. A grid of garment before the eyes allows the woman to see without being seen. The hands are covered . The NIQAB : It is a garment that covers the body to the ankle, leaving only the eyes free. For eyes, it combines with another garment . SHAYLA : It is a large shawl, rectangular, used in the Persian Gulf area. This veil is worn around the head. CHADOR : Used by Iranian women when they leave home. It covers the entire body and can be combined with a shawl over her head. Tenues traditionnelles pour les musulmanes :

5. The BURKA * It is said that this clothing was introduced in Afghanistan in the early twentieth century, during the tenure of HABIBULLA (1901-1919), who imposed the use of more than 200 women from his harem, so that the beauty of their faces would not be seen by other men. The sheets were of silk with delicate embroidery, and princesses of Habibulla even wore burkas embroidered with gold. Thus the burka is converted into a luxury garment worn by women of the leisured class, which in this way were far from ordinary people, thus avoiding their gaze. * Actually, the origin of the burka apparently since Aqueménide dynasty of Persia founded by Cyrus II the Great (sixth century BC). On the other hand, the veil was also used in Assyria (ancient Asian country located in the region of Mesopotamia). Written references, which date from the thirteenth century BC, were discovered in this country, in those days, the Muslim religion did not exist.

6. Historically, it is a clean garment of thePashtun tribes who have been great supporters of the burka. In fact, King Amanullah, who succeeded Habibulla, tried to modernize the country, which included the abolition of the use of the burka. But when his wife, Queen Soraya Tarzi appeared without the burka, it produced a great scandal. His attempts to Westernize AFGHANISTAN earned him the opposition of the rebel Pashtun tribes. Finally he was forced to abdicate and flee to India in 1929

9. . The "full burka" became mandatory in Afghanistan when the Taliban came to power * after the departure of the Soviets, thus imposing a garment that can guarantee control over the woman's body, as it covers his eyes with a veil which prevents the women being able to see normally, because the grid of canvas limits peripheral vision, causing loss of position and space where you are, becoming dependent on another person in order to move efficiently, especially in open spaces. * TALIBAN: A Islamic fundamentalist group, from the Koranic schools in Pakistan. In their majority, they are ethnic Pashtun .

10. . One of the objectives of veil is to prevent the face and eyes to be visible The "burka" exerts a strong pressure on the head (it weighs about 7 kg), increasing fatigue in walking. The length of the garment stops at the feet, not only to cover the whole body, but also to ensure greater difficulty moving, preventing specifically running.

13. The burqa is not an actual garment, it is a prison of cloth subjecting women to the difficulty of seeing nothing clearly what is not to one meter in front of their eyes. It produces an effect vision "glasses", thereby losing sight of the lateral angles, by narrowing the visual field that appears behind the gates open canvas to eye level, "blurring" everything that can be seen. The eyes of these women are prisoners as their bodies. A leader of the clandestine organization of Afghan women RAWA *, confirms this idea when she says: "It's like a prison that keeps you warm and insulates you. Women can not identify. Those who need glasses can not use them. It is as if, in addition, they were blind. The mesh fabric that covers their eyes must be sufficiently thick. Some women are beaten, to bring these "holes" too big. For women the obligation to wear it was a trauma, because it is a humiliation, and it affects all movements, and the view ... " Often, crossing streets, low visibility that allows the small opening causes serious accidents that lead these women to death. * RAWA: A group of intellectual women who, under the direction (leadership) Meena Keshwar, founded in 1977 by the Revolutionary Association of Afghan women. Social work and the fight against the positions of Meena fundamentalists have killed her. On 4/2/1987 she was murdered by agents of the Afghan secret police and their accomplices fundamentalists in Quetta, Pakistan.

17. Women can only travel in the trunk of taxis

21. Identification of a Woman What identity do they have?

29. Hospital Clothing

30. Born with the burka

31. A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights "states that 40% of Afghan women die during their fertile period, due to complications in childbirth.

32. There is no light * Under the burqa, the mother is unable to see the baby. Her face does not exist, her voice is changed and the contact with the baby is impossible.

33. During breastfeeding, is unable to see the baby. There is no connection or support through the burka .

36. When Taliban forces captured Kabul on 27.9.1996, they removed the woman from the Afghan civilian life, expelling as educators and confining them at home. Appropriately, the burqa has become compulsory one of the most compelling symbols of repression by the new scheme. The nascent civil society in cities like Kabul, where women began to enjoy an interesting social status, was removed by a stroke of a pen by the Taliban. Among the tens of thousands of government employees sent home, there were 7,790 teachers in schools. 63 schools have been closed in Kabul. The leap into the past was overwhelming, the twentieth century at the age of the teaching medieval. 65%, 40% of schoolchildren, and almost half of the 7,000 students at the University were women. No one dared challenge the mulla Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader. The coup was a human and cultural results brutal.

40. WOMEN OR TRASH?

46. This small category of life is lived with the threat of punishment for violations. Young guards, who work for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, patrol the streets with whips, sticks and Kalashnikovs in search of a girl made up, a peg to the air, a burst of laughter, they are willing to condemn these women, without any possibility of legal defense, support of punishments such as stoning, amputation, torture, floggings in public.

48. Stoning . Adultery is punished by stoning. The woman is put into a hole in the ground and covered with earth to the chest, then "men" throw stones until she dies. The stones should not be too big, not to cause death too fast nor too small, because then they can not be regarded as stones.

50. Drawing made by an Afghan child

51. After seven years since the invasion sponsored by the United States, and with an exponential growth of armed conflict, we can state categorically that the living conditions of women and girls in Afghanistan today are heartbreaking, and that not much has changed for them, despite the promises of the international community, and that, not only in areas south and east controlled by the Taliban, if not also in much of the areas dominated by the International Coalition, as Helmad is under British jurisdiction.

52. Despite the utopian equality of the new constitution of 2004, women can still be bought, sold or transferred as part of a legacy. As in the days of the Taliban, forced marriages continue, domestic violence and lack of work. There is a city where women leave their homes twice in their life when they get married and go live with their husbands, and when they die. During 2007, 165 women victims of violence have tried to commit suicide. 87% of the Afghan state suffer domestic violence. Half of the complaints is due to sexual abuse. Cases of violence against women and girls in February 2008 increased 40% over the same dates the previous year. 60% of women are victims of forced marriages. Half of the marriages are with young teenagers who have not reached 16 years, although prohibited by law. Girls are often given in return for a dispute, a debt or a crime under tribal law, but also because of the extreme poverty plaguing the country. A father can receive between 600 and 1500 € for his daughter, which is equivalent to 3 years salary for a worker.

53. As in the days of Taliban rule, the blue burka continues to dye to color the streets of every city in Afghanistan (although now appeared of synthetic fabrics of other colors that do not fade in the wash), and judgments of women in public (especially stoning) is the order of the day. But the nightmare of women in Afghanistan does not stop there. Their existence, without basic rights and fundamental takes place in a country in ruins, with persistent drought, impoverished, without infrastructure, full of landmines, with difficulty finding housing or food, in the disasters of 20 years of war, with men in combat and non-production system, where the educated class or professional has fled or is dead.

54. Currently, there are thousands of widows whose only resource is to beg, go crazy, prostitution or suicide, because the law denies them the inheritance of their husbands. There are thousands of women who daily feed their children with bread and tea, who see how their daughters should remain locked up at home without education, and how their son are kidnapped, either physically or morally, to go into battle.

55. In their despair many women commit suicide. This situation is especially common among widows who had no male company, can not go out and especially can not work, and therefore can not feed their children. The public hospital in Herat, a city where suicide is a common method, and between women, treated in 2005, 90 women who attempted suicide by fire. Zahra (20 years) her husband beat her every day and forbade her from seeing her family, fell into a terrible depression and decided to pour cooking oil and to start the fire. She survived. She legally divorced from her husband and now lives with her mother. The healing has caused the loss of mobility of his neck.

57. Will it be possible to hope that the boys go out of their lethargy and also participate actively in work against gender violence, working in campaigns, events, forums, from schools, universities, and in various other acts with the women?. Will it be possible to cooperate with the same momentum against attacks on individual rights and fight for fair gender equality?

58. I dream that the suffering of women, anonymous and invisible, Afghan, Palestinian, Moroccan, African ... be overcome and that justice reigns over these lands which are currently being female is synonymous with disgrace. I dream of a world more just and egalitarian, and this together with you men, invested actively in a conflict where there are no winners or losers. For a future with more hope, where children girls and boys have learned the basis of mutual respect, without discrimination. Is this a Utopia???

59. "LOVE EACH OTHER"!

60. No it with us! ! !