Forced, arranged marriage is a heartbreaking and soul-crushing reality in many Islamic societies. Marrying a 10-year-old to her 30-year-old, illiterate first cousin — not an untypical pairing in parts of the Middle East and Muslim Asia — is barbaric and inhuman. Often, such arranged marriages include normalized wife and daughter-in-law beating.
I recently got a window into this world by watching an HBO documentary with the catchy title Love Crimes of Kabul. The film takes us inside a woman’s prison in Kabul. The tone of the production is surprisingly light, given how dark the underlying subject is. The women in the Badam Bagh prison are commendably feisty. They are surprisingly tough babes in the Big House and their pants-wearing, butch female warden is tougher still. And yet, she still functions as their respected and protective mother figure.
There is much gruff and playful tenderness among the women, who bond and fight with each other as if they are family; they eat and sleep together in the same room, communally. The all-female atmosphere is that of a harem or brothel. The Burqa Babes, if I may call them that, are surprisingly, refreshingly brash. They are from every tribe and region of Afghanistan and they bear the genetic legacy of every conquering army that has passed through the area for millennia.
Iranian filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian (kudos to you, dear lady) miraculously managed to get a camera and a crew inside the prison and inside some of the prisoners’ legal hearings. What crimes have the women committed? Apparently, half the prison population dared to fall in love, or are suspected of having done so; or they have dared to have sex before marriage, have run away from home, or rejected an arranged marriage. These are treated as de facto crimes in Afghanistan. (The other half of the prison population are thieves, smugglers, or murderers.)
One woman was sentenced to four years for having run away with the boy she loved. Another woman, the very spunky Kareema, who looks like an innocent child (many of the inmates do) fell in love, had sex, became pregnant — but the scoundrel who had courted her refused to marry her. She turned both herself and her boyfriend in to the police. The only way this cad can now get out of jail is if he marries Kareema, who is very pleased that she has managed to turn her potential murder into an inevitable marriage.
Some husband. His name is Firuz, and he says, on camera, “I wish I never met her.” Nevertheless, a lawyer advises: “A bad husband is better than no husband.” The women understand and accept this as their lot in life.
Other prisoners include the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law-couple of Zia and Alia (or Aleema). They are in for rather mysterious reasons and they fight bitterly. Did they run away together from a dangerously violent home? Did Zia save the younger woman by hiding her from Alia’s murderous family? Did Alia have an affair with Zia’s son — whom she now refuses to marry? Or did Zia try to pimp out Alia? It’s not clear. These women say that in their family, “people speak with knives.” Alia is clear that if she is ever released from prison, her family will “quietly drown” her.
Then there is Sabera, so young, so pretty, so charming. Although she has been accused of having had premarital sex, a medical exam in prison proves that she is still a virgin. However, she admits to having engaged in anal sex — something that is quite common in Afghanistan both among men and as a birth control device in heterosexual couples. (Courtesy of Amnesty International and the PBS program Frontline, everyone now knows about the “dancing boys” of Afghanistan and about the Taliban and Kandahari penchant for young boys — usually orphans — who are taught to dress and dance like women and with whom the older, dominant man has various types of sex.) For this crime, Sabera was sentenced to three years.
Back to the Badum Bagh prison: One woman on camera admits that she killed her husband — after years of provocation. Naseema is 45 years old and has no regrets. “Men like my husband should all be murdered. He had sex with boys and other women and with a seven-year-old girl. I did the world some good. But it’s considered a crime. I have no pain or remorse. I’m glad.”
The chief female guard says that “women have been given too much freedom.” Another prison guard adds: “If they were good women, they would not be here. They would be home with their families.”
No, sir. With their fighting spirits, defiance, open-heartedness, and philosophical minds, these are very, very good women indeed.
Pajamas Media
Source: National Post
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