Tough Afghanistan Cop

My wife loves Marie Claire magazine.  Unlike most fashion mags, Marie Claire always has great stories about women around the world who struggle against poverty, racism, and even the Taleban.

If you are a woman in a Muslim society and a victim of a crime, a male policeman won’t even talk to you.  And if you are a female criminal, a male policeman won’t touch you to arrest you.  If you are an injured female and need CPR, the male paramedics won’t touch you.

This month’s mag features a great story about the women cops of Kandahar, led by police captain Malalai Kakar.  Kakar recruits women to the police force specifically because women are so endangered by the Muslim societal norms-  such as severe divorce penalties, sexual assault, and wife beating.  

And as a woman, she can make arrests on both men and women.  One great story in the article was also told to the BBC here:

She wears a burqa when she works, but she stressed that she is not forced to. And she added that in some cases, the burqa actually helps her to do her job.

She recalled one horrific case where she was informed of a woman who had been imprisoned in a house for 10 months, chained by her hands and feet.  When she went to the house, she was initially prevented from entering the house because the children would not open the door.

“Eventually, in my burqa, I convinced them I was their long-lost aunt, and they let me in,” she said.

“I entered the house and saw that the whole second floor was closed off… I searched all the rooms and saw a curtain, and pushed it aside… then came the sound of a human voice. When I shone the torch, I saw a woman and a child moving.

“They were all chained up, and when I asked the woman to come out, she whimpered and begged me not to kill her. It took me ages to get her out of there.”

The woman’s hands and feet were chained. Her son was also chained to her.  Both had been living on tiny morsels of bread and water for nearly a year.

It finally transpired that she was the widow of the brother of her current husband. “When their relationship went bad, he’d divorced her,” Ms Kakar explained. “She’d gone round to the house to pick up her possessions, but he’d trapped her and put her in a cage.”

The real fight for women’s rights is in the Muslim society.  Remarkable strides are being taken in Afghanistan and in Iraq to help secure freedom for women.  I fear that cutting off troop funding will be a giant middle finger to women like Kakar who are struggling to make a difference.