Afghan Women
The Lives of Women in Afghanistan
by Paula Bronstein
Paula has photographed dozens of stories in Afghanistan for more than two decades. Many of the images in this story were made prior to the fall of the Afghan government in 2015. Her work captures the depth and breadth of the lives of women in Afghanistan.
Switan, age 10, looks into the window of the Herat Restaurant begging for food in Kabul. She gazes at people eating with the hopes of getting their leftovers. Switan makes 50,000 to 70,000 Afghani per day, which is about $2.50 USD, begging for money from foreigners.
As Paula Bronstein’s photographs vividly illustrate, there are two very different sides to the lives of women in Afghanistan. We see women eagerly queuing up to vote in elections and girls intent on their lessons at school and happily skateboarding, doing this in a country where girls form cycling teams and women work as entrepreneurs, rappers, and in one case, a police chief.
But we also see the almost unbearable anguish of girls in shelters fleeing forced marriages and the horribly burned figures of women so desperate to escape their lives that they have set themselves alight. International rights groups continue to cite Afghanistan as one of the world’s worst places to be a woman.
"What we're seeing in Afghanistan today is two opposite faces," says Hassina Safi, executive director of the Afghan Women's Network. "On one side we're seeing promotion of women to key positions as a result of our advocacy over the last years, but at the same time there is no security for women, and we're seeing the systematic killing of women working outside."
-Christina Lamb, 2015 - excerpt from Paula Bronstein's book AFGHANISTAN
Farkhunda Malikzada
The image of Afghan women breaking a traditional taboo and bravely holding aloft the coffin of 27-year-old Farkhunda Malikzada, burned to death by a mob in central Kabul in March 2015, was Shakespearean in its power. Robed in black, their faces riven with pain as they stood in a circle and refused to let a raging mullah pass through them, these women inspired support across Afghanistan and around the world.
Yet the fact that a woman could be lynched in the center of the capital in broad daylight by a mob of mostly young men who beat her, set her on fire, ran her over with a Toyota pickup, and then threw her in the Kabul River showed how little things have changed since the Taliban era.
Not only did others stand by and watch -- including police -- but some even posted footage of the assault on their Facebook pages. These show Farkhunda, face smeared with blood, repeatedly trying to get up.
