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

her wedding Jamila had been a
beauty, but marriage had aged her terribly. With each year of
married life her face had coarsened. Now every part of Jamila’s
face was swollen and her soft flesh was horribly bruised. Poor
Jamila had endured a terrible beating.
    ‘What did he hit you with, Jamila?’
    ‘It was my fault,’ she cried. ‘I walked away
from the kitchen when the baby cried. I burned his meal. He was
hungry without anything to eat. It was my fault,’ she repeated.
    ‘Stop, Jamila. It is not your fault. Your
baby has been sick for the past two weeks. You had to tend to
her.’
    ‘No . . . no . . . it was my fault. I
deserved a beating.’
    I took a deep breath. I so hated how Afghan
women would excuse their men. If a woman was beaten up, it was her
fault. If a woman was killed, she must have been a prostitute, and
it must be her own fault. Nothing was the fault of males. Women
bore all the blame for their husbands’ cruel punishments.
    That night I had lain awake while Jamila
wept. I remember my anger at her meekness, at her inability to
stand up for herself! Neither of us slept for poor Jamila wept
throughout the night.
    The following morning Jamila was having a cup
of tea in the sitting room when her husband knocked on the door.
Nanny Muma let him in.
    He stalked up to his wife and did not appear
to feel a single spark of shame at her pitiful appearance.
    ‘OK. Go home, Jamila. The pyjama party is
over.’
    I was furious, shocked that the brute didn’t
even apologize despite the fact Jamila’s face bore the pitiful
signs of his beating.
    I was so angry that I snorted, making
Jamila’s husband notice me for the first time.
    ‘Why are you not in school?’
    ‘I am going to take your wife to the doctor.
She is in terrible pain from the beating you gave her.’
    ‘She is going nowhere,’ he sneered.
    With other women in the room, Jamila found
the courage to stand up to him. ‘Maryam is going to take me to the
women’s center and report you for all the abuse you have done to
me,’ she burst out with surprising defiance.
    Jamila’s husband took a couple of steps
closer so that he could slap her full in the face. The blow was so
strong that her head jerked backwards. She dropped her cup of tea.
‘Yes? You can’t make any reports if you are dead. Now shut up and
get home and tend to your children.’
    With that he turned round and walked out.
    Jamila collapsed, weeping.
    I put my arms around her. ‘Jamila, let’s go.
He needs to be punished.’
    ‘No. No. I cannot go. He will kill me.
Then what will happen to my little children?’ With that she pulled
herself away from me and staggered out. Over the years we remained
close, but she never again sought our help, despite the fact the
beatings became even more frequent.
    I had always thought myself above the fray,
never believing I would become like Jamila. Raised by a gentle
father who loved and respected his wife and daughters, I had always
felt myself to be powerful, and immune to such aggression. But now
I felt as powerless as the poor women I had so pitied. Now I myself
was to be pitied by all.
    I knew that Kaiss’s violence was escalating,
and I knew that for the sake of my son I had to get away. Comparing
myself to Jamila and Amina and other women in Afghanistan, I
reminded myself that I was now in America and that my situation
really was different. Here I could get away from my abusive
husband. Here women had rights.
    I took action. First I approached my father.
‘Papa, I know you do not want to hear the word divorce. I know it
is taboo for a Pashtun woman. But I stupidly married Kaiss to
please you. I married him so that you could at least have one
daughter married to a Pashtun.’
    Papa looked at me in surprise, leaving me to
wonder how it was that a stranger could see my bruises, but my
father, who saw me on a daily basis, saw nothing.
    Tears streamed down my face. ‘This marriage
should not have happened. You were warned that Kaiss is a violent
man. Papa, it is true: my husband beats me routinely. He hurts me.
His violent temper is scary. He will end up killing me, Papa. Is
that what you want?’
    Papa said nothing, but he got up out of his
chair, locked the front door and put his arms around me. My bitter
tears suddenly turned to joy. In his own way, Papa was telling me
that I could come and live with him. Although the Pashtun forbid
women to seek divorce for any reason, my father would accept me
leaving my husband.
    And then