Why I Love Women for Afghan Women

by: Esther Hyneman, WAW Boardmember

"Esther spent her professional life teaching literature, Women's Studies and Gender Studies at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University. She retired from the classroom last August. She now devotes much of her time to her painting, where she struggles to combine her interest in realism, her appreciation for the way women have been rendered in Western art, her commitment to feminism, and her belief in the transformative power of visual beauty. She joined WAW when searching for a way to turn her long frustration about the women of Afghanistan into practical action."

Women for Afghan Women is a grassroots, women’s human rights organization with 10 years experience in Afghanistan. The life of the organization and the commitment of the staff and board members (like me) are wrapped up in the women and girls we help in our flagship program, the Family Guidance Center, the first of which opened in Kabul in 2007. By the end of 2011, 8 FGCs will be operating in Afghanistan to help women.

[WAW helps many women and girls in their shelters.  Every other Monday, we will post one of these women's stories. This is the first.]

Farida: 17 years old, was raped by an influential member of her community. She kept the rape and her pregnancy a secret. When she was 6 months pregnant, she ran away, was picked up by police, accused of the crime of zena (adultery), and sentenced to prison. No one was willing to prosecute the rapist because of his power. He is now on the run. We appealed to the Supreme Court, said we won’t give her up unless the rapist is sentenced as well. She is still in the shelter. Baby died during birth. We were able to negotiate her jail sentence from 4 years to 4 months. Her rapist is still missing. She doesn’t want to go back to her father and is living in our shelter in Kapisa.