Last May a beautiful seventeen year old, Shabana, arrived at The Women for Afghan Women shelter in Kabul. She had narrowly escaped being killed by her husband, and had fled to the police station, where they referred her to us. In many ways, she epitomizes the cultural and legal powerlessness of many women living in Afghanistan today. Shabana's father had died when she was young, and she had no strong male family member to protect her. As a consequence, she was vulnerable to abuse. One day she was kidnapped while walking home from school. The kidnapper abused her and forced her into a marriage with him. She was a virtual prisoner in his home, and endured his beatings for close to seven months. One night, she was sure that she would be killed as her abuser choked her until she blacked out. The next day she fled. The treatment that Shabana received at the hands of her kidnapper had been hard to bear. However, even more painful was the indifference of her family. Her mother and other adult family members, a close uncle in particular, did nothing to intervene. She was told that her kidnapping settled a long-standing property dispute between her family and the family of the kidnapper. The "property" was Shabana's sister-in-law, who over 20 years ago had escaped from her abusive arranged marriage to the kidnapper's cousin. Shabana's family therefore found her kidnapping to be a just undertaking. Her mother and uncle attended the court proceedings to beg her to return to her husband, as the family now had two stains on their honor. Her mother even visited her at the shelter to try and talk her into returning to the man who had and would continue to make her life a nightmare of abuse and missed potential. Shabana will always look over her shoulder, worried about retaliation from her former husband and his family. She will always miss her family, and she will never be able to understand how they could have abandoned her so completely. When she first arrived at the WAW shelter, she had nothing: no job, no education, no money, and no support. Despite all that had happened to her, Shabana proved to be a determined and resilient young lady. She was able to summon the courage to go to court with attorneys employed by Women for Afghan Women to confront her batterer and seek a formal divorce. From this enormous step she has continued to move forward, with WAW's support, to rebuild the life that was stolen from her. She is now employed as a Children's Caregiver at the WAW Children's Support Center, where she is earning enough money to live with dignity. She is taking accelerated classes to finish high school. In addition, she is studying English and Computer Science so she can get a better job after she graduates. She now has a new, supportive family-- all of the staff and women at Women for Afghan Women who have wrapped their arms around her and helped her move toward a brighter, more secure future. She dreams of becoming a lawyer so she can help others like herself. Click here to read the LA Times article that featured Shabana and Women for Afghan Women's work.
