On April 4th, CNN released a story of a young woman named Gul Meena. Like every other young girl, Gul had bright dreams of a beautiful, thriving and adventurous life. This dream ended when at the age of 12, Gul was forced into into a marriage with a 60 year old man. Not only did Gul enter into a marriage with a man who was five times her age, but, who was also an extremely abusive man. She was refused help from her family and friends. She admits to have attempted suicide several times. Five years into her marriage, Gul met a young Afghan man and in November 2012, she packed up a few of her belongings and the young couple made their way across the border into Afghanistan to the city of Jalalabad. Days into their trip, Gul’s older brother tracked the couple down. Armed with an ax, he proceeded to hack to death Gul’s boyfriend and cut open his sitter 15 times. Assuming that she was dead, Gul’s brother escaped back to Pakistan. Miraculously, Gul was taken to the Emergency Department of Nangarhar Regional Medical Centre by a passerby and survived the attack. Gul’s brother has not been caught and her family rejects the notion that Gul’s brother tried to kill her.
After two months in the hospital, Gul was transferred to the American-Afghan organization, Women for Afghan Women. Any story like Gul’s is extremely difficult to read and understand. The U.N. claims that 4,000 cases of violence of violence, like Gul’s, were reported to the Afghan Ministry for Women between 2010 to 2012. There are 14 women’s shelters in Afghanistan-only 14 shelters for thousands of acts of violence. At 2014, funding towards these shelters are most likely to end, due to international forces pulling out of Afghanistan.
I have been following the U.N.’s activities for months and years now. Without a doubt, when most people speak within the U.N. on “women’s health” or “women’s rights”, the discussion instantly turns to “reproductive health”. My question to the U.N. community, is how is giving a condom or an abortion to women like Gul going to improve their situation? Should we not place our focus on education and rescue missions to save young girls in these young marriages?
In a CNN interview, Basij-Rasikh, a young Afghan women who recently graduated from Middlebury College, stated that behind every successful woman was a man who believed in her dreams. Distributing condoms, which increases the mentality of promiscuous and violent behavior for men, does nothing to encourage men within the Afghan community to believe in the worth of their fellow women. The U.N. needs to seriously refocus their attention on how they approach the well being of women around the world to include both the practical encouragement of both men and women to live peaceful and whole lives without violence or condemnation.
Here is Gul’s article and Basij-Rasikh’s interview:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/world/asia/afghanistan-honor-killing-survivor
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