For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

Thinking he was about
to be robbed of the last money he had to buy bread, he fought back.
He was quickly overpowered and pushed down on the sidewalk, and his
jeans were ripped off his body. He was truly frightened then,
believing he was going to be raped. But the men left my friend in
his tattered underwear while they lifted him from the ground and
tied him backwards on some poor farmer’s donkey. They had a lot of
fun parading him around the city as an example of a man polluted by
the West. My humiliated friend never did get his jeans back.
    For people of Afghanistan, the world had gone
mad.
    Other more horrifying stories were even more
upsetting.
    Another former schoolmate defied the Taliban
by having a small school in her home, as school had been forbidden
to girls. She was only teaching her own daughter and nieces, along
with two neighbour girls, but you might know the Taliban became
suspicious when they witnessed two girls walking together. They
followed the girls to her home and stayed outside to observe
several more girls arriving, one of whom had a book clutched to her
chest.
    Members of the Taliban burst in, destroying
her few pencils and books before arresting everyone, even the
children. The women’s prison was a horror house, without heating
even in the winter. Their only food was dry bread, a watery soup
and water. My poor friend was beaten with a whip every week and
kept imprisoned for two years, and never in that time was she
allowed to see her children, who had been released after a few
weeks.
    Her health was broken, and within a year of
being released from prison, she died from cancer. The fate of her
two daughters remains unknown because her husband was murdered by
the Taliban over some minor transgression or another.
    Yet another dear friend, named Nooria, who
had worked so hard to rise above terrible poverty, was also
destroyed by the Taliban. Prior to the Russian war, her father had
died, making it necessary for her mother to become a servant,
washing clothes and cleaning houses so her daughter could attend
school. Nooria was the head of her class and her dream of
supporting her mother finally became a reality after she received
her degree and found a job as a teacher in a girls’ school.
    The day she began work, she told her mother
that she never again had to wash another person’s dirty underwear
or clean another woman’s house. Nooria never once missed paying the
rent or buying the family necessities. She was very proud to be
able to support her mother.
    Nooria decided not to get married, because
she feared a husband might forbid her to support her mother. But
Nooria’s sister did marry and had five children, all greatly loved
by Nooria and her mother. Tragically, during the war with Russia,
her sister’s home was bombed. Nooria’s sister and husband, and two
of their children, were killed. Nooria adored her sister’s three
surviving children, so she took them into her home to support them.
She felt that her sister’s children were like her own, and loved
them fiercely.
    After the Russian withdrawal, the country was
plunged into civil war. But still Nooria managed to keep the family
together. Then the Taliban gained power. One of their first acts
was to close schools for girls. Then they banned female employment.
So many men had been killed during the recent wars that Nooria’s
family was only one of many households who had no adult males to
support them.
    With no man in the house to act as a
breadwinner, and the Taliban banning all women from employment,
suddenly Nooria’s little family was facing starvation.
    While the Taliban would not allow women to
work in respectable jobs, they did often turn a blind eye to
prostitution. With three starving children to feed, Nooria became
desperate. She did the unimaginable for a respectable Afghan woman.
Nooria sold her body. Since she was a virgin, she received a high
price for her first time. But soon her fee declined, so she had to
take many customers per night. Since she was not allowed to go out
without a male, she was forced to take her sister’s twelve-year-old
son with her as guardian when she called on her clients. The poor
child would have to wait outside in the cold and listen to the
sexual activity of his beloved auntie.
    That’s what the Taliban brought to
Afghanistan.
    Despite the tragedy of many Afghan female
lives that I was aware of when I was growing up, never could I have
imagined that Afghan women would reach even