Sylvia's Journal

The best International Women’s Day gift for me was not the jewelry set I received from the company, even though I love it, especially since it was selected for me with the greatest of care – I wore my red stone/silver setting earrings and pendant to work this morning minus the ring as I am not much of a ring person.

The best gift was the news that M. had organized a gathering in her flat for women in her building. Most of these women are housewives and don’t get out much, let alone meet with a young female organizer who is bent on waking up her sleeping and passive sisters, old and young. The women enjoyed the gathering so much that they wanted to meet again. This is exactly how change begins, oh such joy. S. is also busy planting seeds, these for her own future and education. All this is activity is very hope giving.

Today was a long day that started with an enormous traffic jam that kept us sitting in a hot car for over an hour; once more I arrived half an hour late at a meeting where the entrance door is right next to where the projection screen is so you cannot slip in unnoticed. This was the third time I miscalculated how long it would take me to drive across town. Only on days that I leave extra early is there no traffic and I find myself twiddling my thumbs in an empty meeting room with everyone else coming in late.

The purpose of my trip to the ministry was to listen to and comment on Afghanistan’s national gender strategy. A thick document, beautifully researched and written by a foreigner, listed so many gender mainstreaming interventions that I got dizzy and wondered who would pay attention after the document was filed.

I learned to my great surprise that there is, since 2009 a law on the books (Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women) that has defined no less than 22 acts considered to constitute violence against women. Here they are: rape; forced prostitution; publicizing the identity of a victim in a damaging way; forcing a woman to commit self-immolation; causing injury or disability; beating; selling and buying women for the purpose of or under pretext of marriage; baad (retribution of a woman to settle a dispute); forced marriage; prohibiting the choice of a husband; marriage before the legal age; abuse, humiliation or intimidation; harassment or persecution; forced isolation; forced drug addiction; denial of inheritance rights; denying the right to education, work and access to health services; forced labor and marrying more than one wife without observing Article 86 of the Civil Code.

Going over this list with one of my female colleagues she described how she was publicly humiliated in a recent workshop by a prominent politician who got away with what we now know was an act of violence against women, leaving her deeply hurt. The hurt was exacerbated because none of her otherwise supportive male colleagues confronted the man on his unacceptable behavior. The worst part is that, probably, none of the men had any idea about what had just happened. Such things are normal. I am afraid this is the story of so many women here (and not just here of course).

On the home front, I started downloading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, now that I am really into Romans having followed Antony and Cleopatra’s adventures and horrific self-inflicted endings.

With our slow connections downloading is a big deal. It took about 24 hours to download part 1 which is now taking up much space on my iTouch. It will take as long if not longer to download volume 3 (volume 2 is not available). Together with some other books (Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Conrad’s Nostromo and Sinclair’s The Jungle) I have at least 48 more hours of downloading ahead of me which, if successful, will deliver to me about 105 hours of listening pleasure – this should keep me happily exercising on my every-other-elliptical-days till we depart Afghanistan, I calculated.