Fistula and child marriages: The two epidemics plaguing Pak women in Gilgit-Baltistan

Seema's battle with fistula unveils the tragedy of early marriage, urging society to confront the intertwined dangers of child marriage and women's health crises.

Shereen Karim

Published May 3, 2024

Seema, a resident of Astore District of Gilgit-Baltistan, received the title, ‘Woman of the Year’, not for her achievements, but for a fate imposed upon her at a tender age: child marriage. One can’t help but wonder how entering into a marriage contract at a tender age warrants this title.

Visibly upset, Seema recounted her story, explaining why she received the honour. Married at the tender age of 13 and diagnosed with vaginal fistula when she was 16 years old, Seema’s existence has since become synonymous with agony.

Every villager, out of pity for her deteriorating health, would visit her, oblivious to the struggle she bore in silence. With no funds for treatment, her father-in-law had even asked the doctor to give her poison — a desperate plea for relief.

Before delving further into Seema’s story, it is important to understand what vaginal fistula is.

The condition occurs when an abnormal passage is created between the vagina and neighbouring pelvic organs like the bladder or rectum. This can lead to numerous complications, including urinary and faecal leakage, abnormal vaginal discharge, tissue damage, kidney infections, and various other symptoms. Doctors warn that untreated fistulas can escalate to reproductive system cancers, potentially even leading to death.

Seema described the pain to be so agonising that she wished for a quick death on several occasions. It’s a stark contrast to the dreams that typically fill the heart of a 16-year-old girl — dreams of a future adorned with aspirations and possibilities. However, Seema found herself teetering on the precipice of despair, grappling with the grim reality of her life-long disease.

It only makes sense for her to be called the ‘Woman of the Year,’ doesn’t it? Her journey isn’t merely reflective of the far-reaching consequences of fistula but is also a testament to the devastating consequences of child marriage.

Perils of child marriage

According to a Unicef report an estimated 18 per cent of young girls are wed before reaching adulthood [18 years of age], amounting to almost 19 million child brides in the country. The number of unreported instances is believed to be even higher.

As per the National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC), Pakistan has the sixth highest number of women married before the age of 18 in the world.

The adverse impacts of early marriage are manifold, encompassing the deteriorating health of the young bride, high-risk pregnancy, and impediments to both her education and personal growth. Moreover, in developing countries such as Pakistan, the unregulated cycle of childbirth places a heavy financial strain on parents, as they struggle to support multiple children, ultimately perpetuating poverty within these families.

Despite tireless global campaigns and legal enforcement in these countries, the insidious practice of child marriage persists. This prevalence is fuelled by a glaring lack of awareness regarding the severe repercussions of such unions, amplifying the issue.

The plight of girls under 18 is particularly dire, as depicted in Seema’s case. Her story serves as a stark reminder of the health complications faced by these young brides face. From debilitating conditions like fistula to a myriad of other ailments, many women are condemned to a lifetime of anguish. While some manage to recover through treatment, others suffer without ever experiencing improvement in their health.

What medical experts say

Dr Sajjad Ahmed, who offers free treatment to patients at Koohi Goth Hospital in Karachi, said that a significant number of women travel long distances from remote areas to seek treatment at the hospital located in the port city’s Bin Qasim Town. This reality underscores the inadequacy of basic facilities accessible to women in Pakistan.

At the other end of the country, Dr Sher Shah and his dedicated team annually organise medical camps in Gilgit, offering treatment and performing surgeries for fistula patients free of cost. While minor cases receive care at City Hospital Gilgit, those requiring more intensive procedures are referred to Koohi Goth Hospital in Karachi.

Dr Sher Shah mentioned how the hospital serves patients not only from across the country but also extends care to individuals from Afghanistan, Iran, Sharjah, and Yemen. Drawing patients from the farthest corners of Sindh, Punjab, Chitral, and Gilgit-Baltistan, including the remote locales of Skardu, Diamir, and Ghizar, individuals recover under their expertise. The hospital has provided free surgeries to almost 40 patients from Gilgit-Baltistan alone.

Despite the invaluable services rendered, the absence of more specialised hospitals for the condition remains a gap in the country’s healthcare infrastructure, he added.

Dr Nazneen Zamir Farooqi, a gynaecologist at City Hospital Gilgit, gets patients from remote areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, including Diamer, Astor, Skardu, Kharmang, Darel, and Ghizar. In many of these regions, the scarcity of healthcare facilities and the absence of skilled attendants during childbirth worsen the problem.

“The pervasive practice of child marriage significantly contributes to this crisis. When young girls are married off, their bodies are ill-equipped for childbirth — a biological reality — as physical maturity is typically achieved post-puberty,” she explained. Consequently, girls under 18 years face heightened risks of complications, and if they contract fistula, their suffering is only magnified.

The impact on women

Throughout pregnancy and childbirth, the absence of adequate treatment can result in a spectrum of deformities in women’s bodies, often leading to the onset of debilitating diseases. Among these, fistula stands out as one of the most distressing, inflicting not only physical discomfort but also profound psychological and social ramifications.

Girls married off at a young age have underdeveloped bodies and fragile bones. If they undergo childbirth before their bodies have fully matured, they are at risk of developing fistula. Similarly, older women who have borne numerous children may experience weakened muscles, rendering them incapable of delivering the baby during childbirth. In some cases, it may also lead them to develop this condition.

In both scenarios, giving birth to a child becomes an excruciating process for the woman, wherein the pressure exerted by the baby’s head against the muscles between the bladder and the vagina may result in the formation of a fistula. In many cases, the babies are stillborn. Without immediate medical intervention, the affected woman is condemned to endure the pain.

What does the Child Marriage Act say?

The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, a federal law in Pakistan in alignment with international conventions on children’s rights, unequivocally condemns a marriage involving a girl under 16 years of age and a boy under 18 years of age as a violation of fundamental rights. Although each province in Pakistan has established its own regulations, in the absence of specific provincial guidelines, national law takes precedence.

Any breach of this law carries severe penalties, including imprisonment for up to six months and fines reaching up to Rs50,000, meant to serve as a deterrent against such grave infringements.

As per the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) conducted in 2016-17, the prevalence of child marriages in Gilgit-Baltistan, especially in areas such as Chilas, Darel, Tangir, and Kharmang, stands alarmingly high, soaring to approximately 26pc. Despite concerted efforts to tackle the issue, including the introduction of legislation in 2015, progress has been hindered by opposition within the legislative assembly, leading to delays in its enactment.

While the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 is in place, its enforcement in these regions falls well short of the mark. And without a legal mandate imposing age restrictions, many see no obligation to adhere to the law. Subsequently, the absence of robust legislation and effective enforcement mechanisms perpetuates the cycle of child marriages, leaving the issue entirely unresolved.

It’s time to break the cycle

Child marriage is not merely a tradition; it has a direct bearing on human health and development. While marriage may bring a sense of satisfaction for many, it also entails significant responsibilities, demanding mental, physical, and financial preparedness. Experts argue that minors lack the maturity essential for a thriving marriage, posing potential health risks.

We cannot afford the luxury of complacency while the innocence of our children is sacrificed at the altar of an archaic practice. It falls upon each of us, as guardians of our collective conscience, to demand comprehensive legislation that will dismantle the structures perpetuating child marriages.

For the sake of our daughters and sons, for the preservation of their health, dignity, and dreams, we must act decisively. The time for rhetoric has passed; it is now time for action.

Header image — taken from Reuters

Shereen Karim is a freelance journalist from Gilgit-Baltistan. She has worked with local and international media platforms.

PHOTO ESSAY

 Syria's Al-Hol camp: child inmates and false identities

Paris (AFP) – The al-Hol camp is the largest of two in northeastern Syria holding the families of Islamic State fighters.

LONG READ

Issued on: 18/03/2024

A girl walks through the al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP


Run by US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), its population spiked at more than 70,000 as the coalition began tightening its grip on the last IS holdout in Baghouz late in 2018.

Iraqis have always been "the dominant nationality" in the camp, with their numbers at one time reaching 30,000, according to Doctors Without Borders.

At its height, 11,000 "foreign" women and children -- that is non-Syrian or Iraqi -- were held there.

After the defeat of the "caliphate" in March 2019, countries across the world slowly began repatriating their nationals. Many Europeans were transferred to Roj, a smaller and better-kept camp close to the Turkish border that today holds 2,500 people, more than 2,140 of them foreign.

The sprawling 320-hectare al-Hol holds more than 43,000 people from 47 countries including France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey and Tunisia -- 21,500 of them children, according to the latest figures.

Iraqis are the biggest group (20,144), followed by Syrians (16,710). Two thirds of the 6,612 "foreigners" are children under 17, according to the camp administration.
13-year-old brides

Kurdish security forces and the SDF guard the camp, with a Kurdish civil administration overseeing the camp. Dozens of United Nations agencies and international and local NGOs provide health, water, sanitation, education and protection services.

Women walk past a dress shop in the Iraqi and Syrian sector of the al-Hol camp © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But the camp's overall management is handled by the US group Blumont paid for by the US State Department, with France also funding some humanitarian assistance and improvements to the infrastructure.

The camp is divided into two parts. Syrians and Iraqis live in the main camp, with "foreigners" held in the high-security "annex" that is cut off from the main camp.

Camp officials say many of the foreigners have not revealed their nationalities or given false ones.

Many marriages in the main camp -- where some 3,000 men live -- are to minors, including girls as young as 13, according to humanitarian workers.

Since the Kurdish-led administration does not recognise child marriage, they are not registered, nor are their children.
Two girls point to the sky -- a gesture often used by Islamic State -- in the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Many men take second wives. These marriages are also not recognised. As a result, the camp "bursts with unregistered children", a humanitarian worker said.

© 2024 AFP

Sins of the fathers: Children of IS left to rot in Syria camp

Al-Hol Camp (Syria) (AFP) – Ali is 12 and has survived things no child should see, spending half his life in what amounts to a prison camp for jihadist families in an arid corner of northeastern Syria.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 - 

Child of the caliphate: A girl in the vast al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
ADVERTISING


He knows not to dream of freedom. Instead he fantasises about having a football. "Can you get me one?" he said, as if he was asking for the Moon.

Five years after the fall of the Islamic State group's brutal "caliphate", tens of thousands of women and children linked to the jihadists are still being held by the US-backed Kurdish forces in camps rife with violence and abuse, with seemingly no clear plan of what to do with them.

More than 40,000 inmates -- half of them children -- are cooped up behind the barbed wire fences and watchtowers of the windswept al-Hol camp run by Washington's Kurdish allies.

The children of the jihadists' failed project live out a grim existence in tattered, tightly packed together tents with little water and limited access to sanitation. Few go to school.

Many have never seen a television or tasted ice cream.

Some boys are taken from their mothers by the guards once they reach 11 in violation of international law, a UN expert found, with the Kurdish authorities claiming it is to stop them being radicalised.

They admit the jihadists still exercise control in parts of the camp through fear, punishments and even murder.

One former inmate told AFP that IS paid pensions to some widows.

Even Ali is old enough to be terrified of them. "They enter tents at night and kill people," he said.

"It's not a life for children... they are paying the price for something they didn't do," an aid worker told AFP.

The al-Hol camp ballooned as the coalition and its allies in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in on IS's last bastion in eastern Syria, putting an end to their five-year reign of terror marked by beheadings, rapes, massacres and enslavement.

Women in niqabs walk past a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where thousands of families of Islamic State fighters are still held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

When the extremists were finally defeated in March 2019, families of suspected jihadists were trucked north to al-Hol from the last holdout in Baghouz.

Five years on, dozens of countries are still refusing to take back their nationals with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi -- whose soldiers guard the Western-funded camp -- calling it "a ticking time bomb".

– 'Acute deprivation' -

AFP interviewed IS widows, aid workers, security forces and administration employees in the difficult to access camp, including inside the high-security "annex", the camp within a camp where "foreign" and more radical women and their children from 45 countries are held apart from the "local" Syrians and Iraqis.

Some asked not to be named for fear of what might happen to them.

To complicate matters, some 3,000 men are held with the women and children in the Syrian and Iraqi sector of the camp. Some are ordinary refugees, but suspicion lingers over others detained by Kurdish fighters as the caliphate collapsed.

Not even the guards venture into the rows of tents at night unless they are carrying out a raid.

The huge dusty camp -- first built for refugees fleeing the wars in Iraq and Syria -- dwarfs the nearby town of al-Hol, with its small houses and narrow streets.

The vast Al-Hol camp in Syria holds more than 40,000 people -- all but 3,000 women and children © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Its thousands of white tents are crammed so closely together that it is almost impossible to walk between them without bumping into something.

Privacy is nonexistent, with the communal kitchens and toilets squalid and insufficient, say humanitarian workers who provide some basic services on top of the food aid on which the inmates survive.

Behind the camp's high fences, kids roam dirt roads, bored and frustrated, some throwing stones at visitors. A blond boy blinked at the camera and then drew his finger across his throat to mimic a beheading.

Most children do not go to the makeshift schools. Instead they try to earn a little by carrying water, cleaning or fixing tents for those whose families wire them money.

Others work in the camp's market, or trade their food aid.

"Al-Hol is a suffocating place for children to live and grow-up," said Kathryn Achilles from Save the Children.

They "have endured acute deprivation, bombardment and have now been in the camp for almost five years. They need more," she said.
'We'll be left here'

"How can our children dream if they've never seen the outside world?" a mother of five held in the high-security annex reserved for foreign women and their children told AFP.

A girl walks behind her mother through the vast al-Hol camp in northeastern

 Syria © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Two thirds of the annex's 6,612 inmates are children, according to the camp's administrators.

The 39-year-old gave birth to her youngest child in al-Hol after fleeing Baghouz in 2019 after her husband -- an IS fighter -- was killed there.

Like all of the women in the camp, she was covered head-to-toe in a niqab and black gloves, a thin slit in the face covering showing her wide, dark eyes.

Although the niqab is banned in the smaller Roj camp holding IS members' families close to the Turkish border, women in al-Hol told AFP they would not dare to take it off, fearing punishment from hardliners.

"It is a bitter life, and what's worse, they say we'll be left here," the mother lamented, with the authorities starting to build new sections where each tent will have its own toilet and kitchen.

Jihan Hanan, the head of the camp's civil administration, confirmed that the work was being done "because the camp may be in place for the long term".

She admitted life was "difficult for residents, but it's also difficult for us given the security situation."

Murder and sexual abuse

But it is what is happening to the children that most worries humanitarian organisations.

In 2022, two Egyptian girls, aged 12 and 15, were murdered in the annex, their throats cut and their bodies dumped in an open septic tank.

Rana, a Syrian girl, was shot in the face and shoulder in 2022 by armed men who accused her of having a child out of wedlock when she was 18.

"They kidnapped me for 11 days and hit me with chains," she told AFP.

Other children are being sexually abused and harassed, a health worker told AFP. In three months in 2021, she treated 11 cases of child sexual abuse.

A girl hugs her mother at the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Some cases were children abusing other children. "They may not know they are hurting each other," she said, adding that a child who abuses is likely to have been a either a victim of sexual assault or witness to it.

Children in al-Hol have seen or heard murders as well as "shootings, stabbings and strangulations on their way to buy food from the marketplace or while on their way to school," Save the Children said in a 2022 report on the camp.

The trauma triggers sleeping disorders, bed-wetting and aggressive behaviour, it said.

"I try not to let my kids socialise to keep them out of harm, but it is almost impossible because the camp is packed," said Shatha, an Iraqi mother-of-five.

"Every time my kids go out, they come back beaten."

Yet keeping children confined to their tents was tantamount to holding them "in a prison inside a prison", a social worker told AFP.
'Coming for my son'

Every mother AFP spoke to in al-Hol -- particularly those in the annex -- were terrified about their boys being taken from them and sent to "rehabilitation centres" by the guards.

The high-security camp within a camp contains women from 45 countries including France, the Netherlands and Sweden, with large numbers from Turkey, Tunisia, Russia, the Caucasus and the Central Asian republics.

Security forces regularly take boys over 11 from the annex in night raids or sweeps of the marketplace, a policy a UN expert condemned as "forced arbitrary separation".

Boys in the 'foreign' section of the camp are removed from their mothers aged 11 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Zeinab, an Egyptian mother, said her 13-year-old son was taken away from her a year ago. Now she worries it will soon be her 11-year-old's turn.

"I can't sleep at night. When I hear sounds outside, I fear they are coming for my son," she said.

Some mothers hide their boys from the guards in holes and trenches or prevent them from going outside.

"Some boys may have turned 20, but we don't know where they are hiding," a member of the security forces admitted.

Authorities say they take the boys to protect them from "sexual abuse" and a "radicalised" environment.

The Pentagon told AFP that it was aware that some youths were removed "to both youth centres and detention facilities" but said "we keep the well-being of children at the centre of our policies and encourage local authorities to ensure their actions consider the best interests of children."

IS cells

Kurdish forces have long warned about IS cells in the camp, with a spike in murders, arson and escape attempts in 2019. Rifles, ammunition and tunnels have also been found in regular security sweeps.

A Syrian woman who fled the camp in mid-2019 recalled how an IS member known as Abu Mohamed would visit widows monthly and pay them $300 to $500.

Diehard: A woman in the Al-Hol camp points to the sky -- a gesture long associated with the Islamic State

 © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"He used to come in a security forces uniform and promise that the group will return," she said.

In the annex's squalid marketplace, women pore over the few available pieces of meat through the slits in their niqabs, while others haul away bottles of water and rugs in three-wheeled carts or on makeshift sleds made from cardboard attached to a rope.

Seeing journalists, some raised a gloved index finger to the sky, a gesture frequently used by IS signifying the "oneness of God".

While many women are repentant, others don't hide their continued allegiance to IS.

IS "are still here, and they have a stronger presence in certain sectors of the camp," according to Abou Khodor, a 26-year-old Iraqi man who has been in the camp for seven years.

He complained that diehards from IS's last bastion in Baghouz had "ruined" the camp. But one of the women captured there said it was more complex.
'Death does not scare us'

"There are supporters of IS, and those who have become even worse," she said. Others, however, "don't want anything to do with it anymore."

Women stand next to a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where Islamic State fighters' families are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

At a protest over searches in the camp earlier this year, one woman was filmed shouting at the guards, "We are here now but one day it will be you!

"The Islamic State is not going away, even if you kill and beat us... Death does not scare us."

But an Egyptian woman was seen urging calm, saying, "We don't want problems."

Such is the mistrust that some women resist being treated with what they call "Western medicine" leading to outbreaks of disease, most recently of measles.

Women and children in the annex also have to get permission to go to the health centres outside the camp, and it sometimes takes "days, weeks or even months" for less critical cases, according to Liz Harding, head of Doctors Without Borders mission in northeastern Syria.

"Fear, movement restrictions, insecurity and lack of emergency services at night" was cutting them off from care, she added.

Some smuggle in medication and at least one woman performs clandestine dental procedures, which has led to cases of sepsis.

"She doesn't have the tools, but there is no other dental care," a Russian woman complained.

- Huge burden for Kurds -

The grim desperation of the situation weighs heavy on the Syrian Kurds running the camp. Many lost comrades to IS militants whose family members they now have to guard.

A Kurdish security forces member patrols the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"It's a major problem... a burden both financially, politically and morally as well," the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi told AFP.

Humanitarian groups in the camp said children should not have to live in such conditions and insist they should not be defined by their parents' actions.

"Mothers want their children to go to school, to grow up healthily and hope they won't be discriminated against because of all they have experienced," said Save The Children's Achilles.

Kurdish authorities have repeatedly urged countries to repatriate their citizens, but hold out little hope of it happening anytime soon. Hanan, the camp's civilian chief, said many "nationalities have no one asking about them".

Asked by AFP what it plans to do with the women and children, the Pentagon said "the only long-term, durable solution for the residents... is the return or repatriation of displaced persons to their areas or countries of origin."

While Iraq has started slow but successful repatriations, thousands of Syrians are stuck in al-Hol awaiting tribal sponsorship to return to areas under Kurdish control. For now, a return for those from Syrian government-held areas looks impossible.

"We wish everyone could go home," Hanan said. "We don't intend to lock anyone up and leave them."

Behind the wire: A boy plays with a mesh bag over his head in the al-Hol camp holding the families of IS fighters in Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But it was little comfort to a Russian mother of two who told AFP she felt the world had abandoned her and her children.

"There is no place to go. There is no solution," she said.

© 2024 AFP

  

British boys most at risk of modern slavery in UK

Image: Ground Picture / Shutterstock.com

People suffering criminal exploitation, often young British boys, must be recognised as victims of modern slavery, a new report has argued.

Entitled Criminal exploitation: Modern slavery by another name, the report found that 45% of victims in the UK are British boys aged 17 and under, with risk factors including deprivation, substance misuse, family circumstances, learning disabilities and school exclusion.

Victims of criminal exploitation are ‘forced, coerced or groomed into committing crime for someone else’s benefit’, the report by the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care says.

However, it says professionals, families and victims themselves ‘frequently do not apply the label of “modern slavery” (nor even exploitation in some cases) to what is happening’.

Legislation and policy are ‘inconsistent’, ‘incomplete’ and ‘confusing’, while support for victims and prevention is inadequate, despite good work done by some charities, local authorities and the Government’s County Lines programme, the report found.

It calls for the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to be amended to include a definition of criminal exploitation.

The independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, said: ‘This report rightly calls on the Government and frontline policing to make sure criminal exploitation is prosecuted for what it is: a form of modern slavery.

‘This will also allow us to do more to prevent the endless stream of young people and vulnerable adults being pulled into criminal exploitation. And give them the support they deserve.’

 Ellie Ames 12 February 2024

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOY BRIDES 

BEST DAVID SOUL OBIT

David Soul, Stephen King and the terrifying power of Salem’s Lot

Alexander Larman
Fri, 5 January 2024

David Soul in Salem's Lot - Alamy

The actor and singer David Soul, who has died at the age of 80, will best be remembered for his iconic performance as the detective Kenneth ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in the ever-popular TV series Starsky and Hutch. Soul tended to be associated with roles that played on his apparently straight-arrow persona honed in the show, which, as time went by, he tended to play up to for comic effect. The highest-profile parts that he took in later years, unsurprisingly, were self-parodying cameos in everything from the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth to the likes of Little Britain and Holby City on British television.

Soul’s twinkly, likeable presence made him a natural fit for roles in comedy and light drama, but these unchallenging roles did his acting abilities a disservice. Not only had he managed to subvert his clean-cut looks as early as 1973, in which he played a treacherous police officer in the Dirty Harry picture Magnum Force, but his finest hour as an actor came when he starred in the lead role of the Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot in 1979, which was broadcast on CBS as a two-part drama just after Starsky and Hutch came to its conclusion. Had an impressionable teenager watched the miniseries because they were a fan of Soul’s, they would undoubtedly have been scared witless.

Although King was already a bestselling author with a considerable fanbase by November 1979, with several iconic novels including The Shining, Carrie and – naturally – 1975’s Salem’s Lot terrifying millions of readers worldwide, he was not yet a known quantity in TV and film adaptations.

Although Stanley Kubrick was hard at work filming The Shining, which would ultimately, and publicly, disappoint King upon its release in May 1980, the only film of his work that had been released prior to 1979 was Brian de Palma’s Carrie. It had been a considerable box office hit in 1976, as well as winning critical plaudits for the lead performances by Sissy Spacek as the telekinetic teen and Piper Laurie as her religious fanatic mother.

Stephen King in 1970 - Getty

Any adaptation of Salem’s Lot had to live up to this precedent, and Warner Bros Television, who produced the film on a $4 million budget, were careful not to derail the King bandwagon before it had begun. After all, if it was done properly, it could be the beginning of a long and lucrative association.

Yet King was unenthusiastic at first, later saying that “TV is death to horror. When [Salem’s Lot] went to TV, a lot of people moaned and I was one of the moaners.” Initially, attempts to adapt it were dismal; King complained that “Every director in Hollywood who’s ever been involved with horror wanted to do it, but nobody could come up with a script.”

For it to succeed, it would have to take risks, and for them to pay off admirably, and terrifyingly. Its story of a successful writer, Ben Mears – something of a King trope throughout his novels – who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, only to realise that vampirism is rampant in the town, whipped up by the charismatic and villainous Richard Straker, was rich in potential but would need to find the right filmmakers and stars. Otherwise the results could be disappointing, or even ludicrous.

James Mason, Tobe Hooper and David Soul on the set of Salem's Lot - Alamy

The hot horror director of the moment, Tobe Hooper, was hired, fresh from the vast commercial success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and veteran screen villain James Mason would prove to be a seductive and terrifying Straker, He managed to make even the words “Good evening” sound frighteningly ominous. But in the lead role of Mears, Hooper and the screenwriter Paul Monash – a King veteran, having already produced Carrie – needed to find someone who was a familiar face but not over-associated with the horror genre, who could stand toe-to-toe with Mason and also provide a steadying figure that the audience might empathise with amidst the scares. The producer Richard Kobritz met with Soul, in what the actor later described as an appropriately “black, bleak” office, and offered him the role.

Soul was delighted to be acting opposite Mason, which he called “a real kick”, and the production was set in the town of Ferndale in Northern California. The crucial location was the Marsten House of the novel, a hilltop property with a reputation for being haunted which Mears is planning on writing a book about. An elaborate set was constructed outside Ferndale, in the style of a New England house, although as Soul said “they built the exterior, [but] it wasn’t a whole house…it was a façade, and the interior was at the Warner Brothers lot back in California.

“One day, when we were preparing to shoot up at the house, we heard this horrible crash, and there was this car that had run into a telephone pole. When we reached the car, the driver had this look on his face like he’d seen something impossible, and sure enough, this man had lived in Ferndale for 30 years, and had never seen this before.” Soul would not be the only person aghast at what the production would conjure up there.




Several of Soul’s Starsky co-stars, including Juliette Lewis’s veteran character actor father Geoffrey and George Dzunda – later to meet a grisly end in Basic Instinct – were reunited with him in Salem’s Lot, and Soul enjoyed working with them. But he reserved his highest praise for Mason, who he called “absolutely a marvel…a legend, a real legend, someone who came out of the old school, and boy, you could tell the difference. He really knew his craft.” Belying his terrifying persona on-set, Soul praised Mason as “a joy to be with, and a joy to be around.”

The two may have been deadly adversaries on set, but when not filming, they would head to Mason’s trailer and play cards together, which Mason was a keen aficionado of. And the veteran actor was not above punning humour, either; he referred to Soul and his young co-star Lance Kerwin, who played Mark Petrie, a boy whose knowledge of horror film lore helps solve the mystery of Salem’s Lot, as “Lancesky and Hutch.”

One of the film’s most terrifying characters was that of Kurt Barlow, the Nosferatu-esque vampire who Straker has come to Salem’s Lot in order to resurrect. As played by the Austrian character actor Reggie Nalder, Barlow’s character was changed from the conventional-looking villain of the novel to a demonic apparition, on the grounds that, as Kobritz said, “I wanted nothing suave or sexual, because I just didn’t think it’d work; we’ve seen too much of it.” (The fact that he had the velvet-voiced Mason as his lead villain meant that suavity was also assured, too.)

Chilling: a scene from Salem's Lot - Alamy

Soul remarked that “Nadler was born to play this role. He didn’t like it very much, because he had to wear these contact lenses, and his make-up kept falling off, so we had to stop and reset his face, eyes, teeth and eight-inch fingernails.” He quipped that Nalder may have been dissatisfied with the requirements of the role – the actor commented “The makeup and contact lenses were painful but I got used to them. I liked the money best of all” – whereas, in Soul’s knowing words, “I did it for the art.”

The series was packed full of immediately iconic scares. The moment in which the child vampire Ralphie Glick tries to enter his brother Danny’s room from outside, while scratching terrifyingly at the window, remains the most memorable, and has been alluded to in everything from The Simpsons to Eminem’s song Lose Yourself. Guardians of the Galaxy director and DC supremo James Gunn wrote, after Hooper’s death in 2017, that the filmmaker “created the moment that scared me the most as a child – that floating, dead kid tapping on the window.”

Bearing in mind the demands of television, rather than film, it largely eschewed explicit bloodshed in favour of what Hooper called “the overtone of the grave.” He said “A television movie does not have blood or violence. It has atmosphere which creates something you cannot escape – the reminder that our time is limited and all the accoutrements that go with it, such as the visuals.”

Soul enjoyed working with “the very fine director”, who he praised for being “very well prepared”. There were lighter moments, too. The actor celebrated his birthday on set; he later quipped, “they told me I had a good time, but I don’t remember a hell of a lot...I’m told I was enjoying it too.”

Reggie Nalder as the villain of Salem's Lot - Alamy

Salem’s Lot was enthusiastically received on its first screening, and was later followed by a sequel, Return to Salem’s Lot, and another 2004 miniseries adaptation, this time starring Rob Lowe. It has subsequently proved to be one of the most influential of all modern-day vampire stories, inspiring everything from such Eighties classics as The Lost Boys and Fright Night to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and King regular interpreter Mike Flanagan’s 2021 Netflix miniseries Midnight Mass.

And another film remake is planned, this time directed by It screenwriter Gary Dauberman. Yet it will struggle to surpass the original, which remains one of the most successful King adaptations, with the emphasis on suggestion and subtlety over bloodshed making it all the more terrifying.

As Soul put it: “Salem’s Lot is responsible for a whole new genre, particularly in terms of television. I think the film we did is the legendary film, the real thing, and everything else tried to copy elements of what we accomplished.” The obituaries will salute this versatile actor for being forever Hutch, but Salem’s Lot is surely his truest – and longer-lasting – legacy.

STANDARD OBIT

Starsky & Hutch actor David Soul’s 50 years on screen and stage

Jordan Reynolds, PA
Fri, 5 January 2024

Actor David Soul was best known for his role as Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson in the classic crime-solving television series Starsky & Hutch.

US-born Soul, who starred opposite Paul Michael Glaser, who played Detective Dave Starsky, in the 1970s US TV series, was also known for his roles in Here Come The Brides, Magnum Force and The Yellow Rose.

With a career spanning 50 years, Soul also made a name for himself as a director, producer, singer/songwriter and social activist.

David Soul (Yui Mok/PA)


David Solberg (Soul) was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 28 1943, then spent the next 12 years between South Dakota and post-Second World War Berlin.

His father Dr Richard Solberg, a professor of history and political science and an ordained minister, moved his family to Berlin where he served as a religious affairs adviser to the US High Commission.

Soul was affected by his experiences in Berlin and initially considered following in his father’s footsteps, later becoming involved with the South Dakota Young Democrats.

He was also an avid sportsman and was offered a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox after high school in 1961.

David Soul arriving for the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, held at Planet Hollywood in central London, in November 2005 (Yui Mok/PA)

But instead, during his second year of college, he left to go to Mexico City with his father who went to be a professor at a graduate school for young diplomats.

Here he was introduced to the indigenous songs of Mexico and when he returned to the US, he secured a job singing folk music at a coffee house at the University of Minnesota.

It was in Minneapolis where Soul got his first taste of theatre.

He was 21, married and with a child when he took over his friend’s role as the “Pugnacious Collier” in the Firehouse Theatre’s production of John Arden’s Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance.

Then, separated from his wife, Soul sent an audition tape and a photo, calling himself “The Covered Man” – while wearing a mask and shortening his name to Soul – to the William Morris Agency in New York, which signed him.

Actor David Soul in 2004 (Ian West/PA)

Soul travelled to New York in 1965 and appeared on The Merv Griffin Show for multiple singing appearances, as well as with MGM Records.

His first release was The Covered Man. Soul wore a mask for four months and would not show his face, saying he wanted to be “known for his music”.

Studying in New York with Uta Haugen and Irene Daily, Soul was given his first television role in 1960s dolphin series Flipper.

He was spotted on The Merv Griffin Show by a talent executive at Columbia/Screen Gems, then signed a contract with Screen Gems which saw him move to Los Angeles.

Soul acted in Star Trek, Here Come The Brides, Perry Mason and Johnny Got His Gun, throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

He got his break as officer John Davis in Clint Eastwood’s police yarn Magnum Force, about Inspector Harold Callahan, which led to a part in Starsky & Hutch from 1974 to 1979.

David Soul arrives for the annual National Television Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in central London in 2004 (Ian West/PA)

In the years following, Soul directed different television series, produced and directed theatre shows and produced and directed three documentaries.

He also funded, produced and co-directed a documentary on the shutdown of Pittsburgh’s steel industry between 1982 and 1985.

At the height of his fame he released the UK chart-toppers Don’t Give Up On Us and Silver Lady, and the hits Going In With My Eyes Open and Let’s Have A Quiet Night In.

Soul toured across large parts of the world with his band and performed as part of the late Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977.

But in the 1980s Soul hit the headlines when he was arrested for attacking his then-wife, and he went on to be part of a BBC programme in the early 2000s which aimed to tackle domestic violence.

He also went on to appear in TV series Salem’s Lot, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, as Ben Mears, who returns to his home town, which has been taken over by vampires.

Soul was also in Miami Vice, Harry’s Hong Kong, Homeward Bound and a TV series remake of Casablanca.

David Soul on stage at London’s Phoenix Theatre (Rebecca Naden/PA)

In the last 30 years of his life, Soul moved from Los Angeles to New Zealand, then to Australia, where he performed in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, Paris and finally London where he worked in theatre, television and film.

In the 1990s, he made his debut on the West End stage in the award-winning play Blood Brothers while he was living in the UK.

Some of his many television and film credits in the UK include appearances on Little Britain, Top Gear, Holby City, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Death On The Nile, as well as films Tabloid and Puritan.

He and Glaser reprised their roles in the 2004 remake Starsky & Hutch, starring Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch.

Soul, who was a dual US and UK citizen, was married five times, including to actresses Mirriam Solberg, Karen Carlson, Patti Carnel Sherman and Julia Nickson, and had six children and seven grandchildren.

Soul died on Thursday at the age of 80 surrounded by his family, his wife Helen Snell said in a statement.

 

Stalled progress toward eliminating child marriage in India

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Friday, December 15, 6:30 PM ET

Key points:

• Using national data between 1993 and 2021, researchers observed that India’s national prevalence of child marriage—defined by the study as marriage before age 18—declined throughout the study period. 

• The decade between 2006 and 2016 saw the largest magnitude of reduction in child marriage, while the years between 2016 and 2021 saw the smallest. During these latter years, six Indian states/union territories saw increases in the prevalence of girl child marriage and eight saw increases in boy child marriage.

• The study is among the first to examine how the prevalence of child marriage has changed over time at a state/union territory level. 

Boston, MA—Child marriage has declined in India—but across the country, one in five girls and nearly one in six boys are still married as children, and in recent years the practice has become more prevalent in some states/union territories, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Child marriage is a human rights violation and a recognized form of gender- and sexual-based violence. India’s success in reaching zero child marriage is critical to achieving United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.3.

The study will be published on December 15, 2023, in The Lancet Global Health.

“This study is among the first to estimate how rates of girl and boy child marriage have changed over time at a state/union territory level. Boy child marriage in particular is often overlooked; to date, there’s been almost no research estimating its prevalence,” said lead author S. V. Subramanian, professor of population health and geography. “Our findings offer a big step forward in understanding the burden of child marriage in India—one that will be critical to effective policymaking.”

Though India legally defines child marriage as marriage before age 18 for girls and before age 21 for boys, for the purposes of the study the researchers defined it as marriage before age 18 for both sexes. Using data from all five waves of India’s National Family Health Survey, from 1993, 1999, 2006, 2016, and 2021, they estimated the number of men and women ages 20-24 who met that definition across state/union territories. 

The study found that between 1993 and 2021, child marriage declined nationally. The prevalence of girl child marriage decreased from 49% in 1993 to 22% in 2021, while boy child marriage decreased from 7% in 2006 to 2% in 2021. (Using the Indian legal definition of boy child marriage, the prevalence was much higher: 29% in 2006 and 15% in 2022.) However, progress towards stopping the practice of child marriage has stalled in recent years: The largest reductions in child marriage prevalence occurred between 2006 and 2016, with the lowest magnitude of reduction occurring between 2016 and 2021. In fact, during these later years, six states/union territories (including Manipur, Punjab, Tripura, and West Bengal) saw an increase in girl child marriage and eight (including Chhattisgarh, Goa, Manipur, and Punjab) saw an increase in boy child marriage.

By 2021, the researchers counted more than 13.4 million women and more than 1.4 million men ages 20-24 who were married as children. The results showed that one in five girls and nearly one in six boys are still married below India’s legal age of marriage.

“Child marriage is a human rights violation,” said first author Jewel Gausman, research associate in the Department of Global Health and Population. “It is both a cause and a consequence of social and economic vulnerability that leads to a range of poor health outcomes. The state/union territory stagnation in reaching zero child marriage that we observed is a significant concern—and is a call for India to reignite progress.”

Rockli Kim, visiting scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, was also a co-author.

Funding for the study came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-002992).

“Prevalence of Girl and Boy Child Marriage: A Repeated Cross-sectional Study Examining the Subnational Variation across States and Union Territories in India, 1993-2021,” Jewel Gausman, Rockli Kim, Akhil Kumar, Shamika Ravi, S.V. Subramanian, The Lancet Global Health, December 15, 2023, doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00470-9

Visit the Harvard Chan School website for the latest news, press releases, and multimedia offerings.

###

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives—not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America’s oldest professional training program in public health.

---

JOURNAL

The Lancet Global Health

DOI

10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00470-9 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Prevalence of Girl and Boy Child Marriage: A Repeated Cross-sectional Study Examining the Subnational Variation across States and Union Territories in India, 1993-2021

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

15-Dec-2023

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CHILD BRIDE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOY BRIDES 

‘Control of women is foundational to the Taliban’s project’

How life in Afghanistan has changed after the second Taliban takeover, Stanford University historian Robert Crews explains

INTERVIEW
SOCIETY

10 July 2023

Alyona Itskova, 

correspondent for Novaya Gazeta Europe

Afghan women during a rally to mark International Women's Day in Herat, Afghanistan, 08 March 2021. Photo by EPA-EFE/JALIL REZAYEE


LONG READ

After the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021 and re-established control over Afghanistan, they made a pledge to install a softer, more moderate regime compared to their first time in power in 1996-2001. Or at least, this is what the people wanted to hear.

Since then, however, the Taliban have been putting increasing pressure on half of the country’s population — the women. Over the course of the last two years, the Taliban have installed a mandatory head-to-toe cover up dress code for women, prohibited them from entering most public places including parks and sports centres, and banned young girls from going to schools and universities.

Most recently, the Taliban have ordered hair and beauty salons in Afghanistan to shut down, leaving even fewer job and leisure opportunities for women. The UN said all the progress that had been achieved in regards to female liberation during the 20-year-long US intervention in Afghanistan was erased after the Taliban takeover.

Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke with Stanford University historian and expert on Afghanistan Robert Crews about how the Taliban have changed during their second time in power and why the oppression of women plays a crucial role in their ideology and political project.

Robert Crews
Professor of History at Stanford University and editor-in-chief of the journal Afghanistan


Taliban is often mentioned alongside ISIS or North Korea to illustrate some sort of extreme conservative entity. But what exactly is the Taliban? Where is it placed on a political spectrum and how does it operate as a government?

Most reasonable people are critics of the Taliban because of their long record of human rights abuses, history of engaging in all kinds of atrocities against civilians, women, and marginalised groups. It’s tempting to put them in a camp alongside other “ideological enemies”. But it depends upon who’s doing the classification. Rather than think about ISIS or North Korea, a closer analogy is with Saudi Arabia. One thinks of a political structure whose architects imagine that they are implementing God’s law.

The framing the Taliban have primarily is that everything they do is about Islam. Understand it as a tradition which relies fundamentally on the centrality of religious law. It’s important to point out, however, that the Taliban have a very particular understanding of Islamic law and its relationship to politics.

The Taliban claim, in fact, that they are doing the work of early Islam, of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and really holding this era of the Prophet Muhammad as an exemplary model for their politics. But what we know is that the movement that they founded was shaped by the Cold War, when the United States fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union.

 

Cover of Global Jihad, A Brief History, by Glenn E. Robinson


The thinkers that are now the inspiration for the Taliban really only emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. They emerged from a global jihad, but also from a very distinctive milieu formed in refugee camps. It’s a very specific intellectual formation.

As much as the Taliban are a Cold War project, they are also a modern project. Their ideas have evolved in the last 20 years under the pressure of a war against the United States, a war against American hegemony.

One central kernel of the Taliban’s ideology is this very strong commitment to ordering the lives of women. I think much of what the Taliban are doing in their minds is a direct response to what the Americans did.

What they are doing with respect to women is a very intentional program to dismantle what the US, NATO, and various foreign actors did over 20 years.

What the Taliban understand by governance has historically been quite distinct from the global norms. They first came into power in some parts of the country in 1994 [during the Civil War] and their entry card into different geographic locales was to say: “We’re bringing order”. That meant Islamic law and a strong emphasis on what we would call judicial matters.

They claimed to bring law and order, disarming some people, imposing police presence, and putting a strong emphasis on sexuality, on the policing of morals as the foundation of public order. First, they struck their political opponents and then immediately after established a court system and a regulatory system that looked over family relationships, the conduct of wives and women in general.

For some Afghans, this was very attractive. Imagine you’re living in a place where there was a kind of strongman who ruled quite capriciously for his family, he ruled by the gun. He may have seized women or boys for his pleasure. Then you have Robin Hood-like figures, who come to town and claim in a of populist vocabulary that they are setting things right for the people.

From an outsider’s point of view, it’s a very minimalist understanding of government. But in their thinking, it’s already complete. It’s sufficient. It’s enough because God’s law accounts for everything, right? If we can bring morality to society, then that will affect things at the market. For example, when you go to the market, no one will overcharge you for bread because they’ll recognise that we live in a just moral order. So all the kinds of regulatory mechanisms that in a European setting would be within a social contract are already embedded in Islamic principles, the Taliban argue.

What degree of popular support does the Taliban government enjoy and is it possible to accurately measure it?

The Taliban rule by force, by the threat of violence. From a scholarly point of view, the forms of violence that they rely upon are interesting because they are very theatrical. I just saw a video recently of a truck driving around Kabul with a crane with bodies swinging from it.

When they were in power in the 1990s, they would bring people to the football stadium in Kabul and execute them there. Others watched it as entertainment. The Kabul Stadium killings in the 1990s were important because they were symbolic, it was like theatre. If you’ve ever been to the Red Square, you know there’s a place there where the executions happened. So it’s all very mediaeval and early modern.

Like I said, the Taliban rely on fear, but in Afghanistan there are people who, for various reasons, like the idea of law and order and like the idea of being on the right side of God. There are also people who were totally screwed over by the American presence. NATO forces killed tens of thousands of Afghans, so there has been a seething resentment against the foreign presence. The idea that Afghan nationalism is about opposing foreigners remains a strong one, all Afghans share it to varying degrees. So if you see the Taliban as your heroes who saved you from the evil Americans and if you’re not an adulterer, you’re not a thief, and you don’t run afoul of their morals, then their rule might not be so bad.

 

Afghan women protest against new Taliban ban on women accessing University Education on December 22, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Stringer/Getty Images

But can I tell you what percentage of the population that is? No. There’s also an ethnic dimension to that. The Taliban are almost exclusively an ethnic Pashtun movement. So are the vast majority of their supporters (Afghanistan consists of multiple ethnic groups, the Pashtun group is believed to be the largest one. — Editor’s note).

Ethnicity is also a very sensitive subject in Afghanistan. More and more people reject the idea that the Pashtuns are really the biggest group within the country. There’s a dark side to it.

The people who served in the Soviet army in the 1980s have since written memoirs about their time in Kabul. A lot of them try to understand why that [Soviet–Afghan] war was a failure.

They also write things like: “We backed the Pashtuns because historically they have been the dominant people”.

In almost every case, the Soviet experts and advisors said “We need to make sure we have a Pashtun on our side so that the Pashtun can control everyone.” Then the Americans came in and did the exact same thing. They thought that in order to install a new government in Afghanistan there needed to be a Pashtun at the top. And the other Afghans wondered why. Unfortunately, the Afghans are now spread all over the world and the tensions between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns are worse than ever.

Taliban was also in power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. How do the “old” and the “new” Taliban differ overall?

The Taliban did change a lot. They adapted to the new circumstances starting with the foundation — the violence. They modernised their military, they wear uniforms now, they have tanks and helicopters. The Taliban also adapted little things along the way, for example, the practice of suicide bombing which came from Iraq.

There was this idea that “the new Taliban” would be nicer, softer and more moderate but I think that’s what people “promised for them”. They became much more effective in communication, their propaganda became much more sophisticated. What they said consistently but in more sophisticated ways was: “We are for Islam, for the Afghan nation, and against the foreigners.”

Young Afghan men in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1996. 

Photo by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images


The images of the invaders, the crusaders, the outsiders, the foreigners were always a huge gift to the Taliban propaganda. Back in the 1990s, there was a debate within the Taliban whether to use modern mass media. This is crazy, but briefly in around 1999 they even had a website. They shut it down quickly but then put it back up in 2010.

That’s the weird thing about how the Taliban are. Many of them were sitting in Pakistan, they were young people. They went to school, they liked computer stuff. Then, like many other people in the world, they watched Hollywood movies. As a result, they started producing these very sophisticated videos that were essentially a blend of Hollywood cinematography with their core principles, for example, martyrdom. The Taliban have this idea that when you’re a martyr and you die fighting the Americans, your body doesn’t corrupt, it doesn’t tear up. So they make clips about that and some of it is homoerotic even, videos about young beautiful men turning into flowers.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOY BRIDES 

Women in Afghanistan

After coming to power, the Taliban made a pledge to install a less radical regime. After that, however, we’ve been seeing mixed messages about women’s rights in the country. Most recently, the supreme leader of the Taliban said “the status of women as a free and dignified human being has been restored”.

 What do all these claims mean?

These promises to liberate women mean very little, unfortunately. The Taliban are under significant international pressure to develop new policies towards women, but there’s no muscle behind. You see statements from some UN officials, but that’s it.

In the 1990s, the public infrastructure was already devastated as a result of the civil war. The questions arose — can women work in hospitals? What about widows? Can widows work in a factory or work in a bakery? The Taliban said no. Fast forward to 2021, the Taliban encounter a society in which many women have been working in all kinds of sectors. The Taliban then start to exclude women from public spaces once again.

How crucial is oppression of women to the Taliban’s ideology? Meaning, if the situation with women’s rights was to improve, would that weaken the whole regime?

Control of women is foundational to the Taliban’s political and religious project. If anything, it has become more central over the last 20 years as a direct answer to the alternative political order that the US and its allies established. Sure, it was important in 1995 as well but at the time the Taliban also had to win a war and take over the country.

But now imagine those same fighters in 2021. They rode into Kabul and they saw a society around them that demonstrated a complete rejection of the moral values that they held.

So the status of women became inseparable from what they think is their struggle against foreign influence and against the Americans. It’s not just about gender narrowly, but about their vision for the country.

The American project was so much about changing the status of Afghan women that what we see today with all the restrictions the Taliban have imposed is really an attempt to answer back to this project in a very specific way.

Demonstration and prayer in support of the Taliban on 17 September 2001 in Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo by William STEVENS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

20 years ago, the George W. Bush administration used women’s rights and empowerment as a one of justifications for its war in Afghanistan. Now the Taliban are back, women’s rights are at stake again, and the American campaign is seen by many as a failed one. How does that change the international community’s approach to put pressure on other states in the name of moral progress?

The women’s issues were used by the US as an instrument, a tool to get the progressives and liberals on board with this war. The very first people to make the statements were Laura Bush, George Bush’s wife, and Cherie Blair, Tony Blair’s spouse. They gave almost identical speeches within two days of September 11th.

For me as a historian, it seems to completely replicate what European colonial powers did very early on in the 19th century. There was this idea that Algerians should not rule themselves because of what they did to the women. Russians did this in Turkestan (during the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire. — Editor’s note). It was totally a European thing to place gender at the centre of these colonial relationships.

The cynicism of that didn’t totally destroy the aspiration, though. Politicians should be working toward gender equity. However, doing that at the point of a gun was always problematic and doomed to be illegitimate. But now the pendulum has swung another way, where no one cares about women.

How do Taliban’s numerous accounts of human rights abuse affect Afghanistan’s position and influence globally? We’ve seen countries that do some business with the state on the down-low, including China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

When the Taliban were in power in the 1990s, there was much more condemnation of their politics, especially of their gender policies. But today, most neighbouring states are more or less content to see them do their thing without any formal recognition.

First of all, no foreign country has given the Taliban diplomatic recognition. Even Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE, who recognised the Taliban the first time around, remember they got in a lot of trouble for that. But again, if you look at the map and start looking around, you see Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan. Everyone is going to Kabul. Russians never left their embassy. China never left their embassy. Pakistan, of course, has close relations. India is trying to play a bigger role. Afghanistan is so important to all these countries that they’re not really going to do too much to oppose the Taliban.

But the Taliban do enjoy a form of what I’d call a “soft recognition”. Iran and the Taliban have decent relations, despite occasional border skirmishes and disputes over water. The Saudis are very quiet, but behind the scenes they back them.

It’s very frustrating for the Afghan friends of mine. They try to do good things within the diaspora, but on the international level, I don’t see anything any country can do to change the Taliban’s conduct and policies unless there’s truly a global conversation which the US does not want to have with all these states like Russia and Iran. The US doesn’t care about the Afghan women and neither does Russia.


The Taliban don’t really face any pressure from the international community for a variety of reasons. For the regional powers there are all these economic relationships and money to be made [in partnership with the Taliban].


As for the US, recently Joe Biden said something along the lines of: I told you the Taliban would help us against al-Qaeda. That made Afghans who oppose the Taliban furious. They started wondering if Biden was admitting to an alliance with the Taliban. I think from the beginning this was part of the secret deal between the Americans and the Taliban. The agreement was to fight against their common enemy — al-Qaeda and the Islamic state (the hostile relationship between the Taliban and other terrorist groups has to do with a different understanding of Islam. — Editor’s note). I heard that the Washington officials have written off Afghanistan as a country but ready to deal with the Taliban as a new counter-terrorism ally.

People from Afghanistan form a large percentage of refugees entering Europe, but reports show that the vast majority of Afghans fleeing the country are men. Some believe this has to do with discrimination within Afghanistan as well — sending a woman on a dangerous journey is not seen as “economically reasonable”, as women, if they survive, still end up getting lower-paying jobs than men. How could the West aid Afghan women in escaping dire conditions?

I shouldn’t make predictions as a historian, but I think eventually there’ll be voices calling for a new war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. It’s just too easy. In the US, we never have enough enemies.

What one could do in a non-military way is facilitate legal migration. Instead of forcing people to make a dangerous journey, fly them out on planes. So they don’t have to get subjected to violence, smuggle themselves through Iran and Turkey and then drown in the Adrian Sea.

Given our inability to change Taliban behaviour, one thing to be done within my line of work is creating more spaces for the Afghan women to come to study here [in the US].

 

Afghan women hold up signs demanding their rights to education and employment. Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, 26 June 2023. Photo by EPA-EFE


What are the forces within Afghanistan fighting for women’s liberation? How do women show resistance on a personal, day-to-day level?

From early on, women-led resistance did a lot to liberate the Taliban’s policies. The Taliban were hesitant to introduce repressive measures right out of the gate [in 2021]. From the very beginning, it was consequential that women came out and engaged in street protests and held up signs in a variety of languages to speak to the world. I think that had a temporary effect in stalling some of the Taliban policies.

The other thing women are doing that is worth noting is engaging in a lot of underground activities. Especially with mutual support networks, running underground schools. But of course it’s hard to say how extensive that is.

That was a hallmark of the 1990s. There were some underground schools. Now there’s a lot more experience and in how to do that. But it’s not really sufficient to replace formal schooling for everyone.

One of the questions is “Where are the men? Why don’t they protest?”. There’s also a small armed resistance group around the Panjshir valley. There’s a lot of propaganda around what that looks like. Its backers want to say it’s a big military force that might succeed. But, unfortunately, two years into their resistance movement, it looks unrealistic.

So women are left with very few options. One is trying to leave the country and that’s very difficult. Where can you go? The other is to try to adapt and survive, which is getting more difficult as well. There isn’t really an avenue for women to change the system from within because they’re excluded from positions of power or even state authority.

It’s very frustrating. The Afghan society is so young, and here are all these people who are just deprived of a future. The rates of suicide are increasing, especially among young women, young girls. It’s a reflection of absence of hope.