By Tamana Taban
Cast out from two marriages for only giving birth to daughters, Mahparwar* lives with four of her six children live in a modest, cold house with minimal access to basic amenities.
It’s a cold winter day in Bamyan province with temperatures reaching 18 degrees below zero when Mahparwar shares her pain for being punished for a “crime” she did not commit – the crime of not bearing a son.
“About 35 years ago, when I was young, my father married me off to a man whose face I had never even seen before,” Mahparwar says.
“My marriage was forced against my will, and I went to a house where I was a stranger. I accepted life as it was, with all its hardships, because I had no choice but to accept it.”
She had her first child one-and-a-half years after their marriage.
“Everyone was expecting a son,” she says.
Instead, they had a beautiful and healthy daughter. But it meant nothing to her husband and his family. They were waiting for a son.
Humiliation, criticism, and violence soon engulfed the newlywed. Mahparwar had become a symbol of misfortune in her husband’s home. She knew that giving birth to a daughter was not her fault, but she had no choice but to endure all the insults, taunts, and gossip from her husband’s family.
Scientifically, whether a baby is male or female has nothing to do with the mother. It is the father’s sperm that will determine the baby’s gender. However, this fact is not widely known in the traditional society of Afghanistan. As a result, women are often subjected to abuse, with the term “daughter-bearing” used as a derogatory slur.
Mahparwar’s fate is shared by thousands of women in Afghanistan who have suffered deeply due to these misguided and traditional beliefs. In more extreme cases, women have been killed for giving birth to a daughter.
The phrase “giving birth to a daughter is a crime” emerged because of these attitudes, but the beliefs had started to lose its grip in recent years. Education and awareness was slowly making its way into the closed and traditional areas of Afghanistan, but the return of the Taliban and deeply misogynistic policies have seen these ideas begin to gain strength once again.
For Mahparwar, the abuse endured through two more pregnancies and two more daughters.
“When my third child was born, and it was another daughter, my husband became very angry,” she said.
“He said horrible things to me, cursed me, and yelled at me. He told me, ‘You must be cursed, because you can’t have a son.’
“In the end, he threatened me ‘If you give birth to another daughter, I will divorce you.’”
In desperation to not have any more children, Mahparwar says she sometimes secretly used birth control, and sometimes used it with her husband’s knowledge. But after two years, at her husband’s insistence, she became pregnant again.
“When the child was born and I found out it was a daughter, my whole body became weak and lifeless,” she says.
“I thought I had lost everything because I knew what fate awaited me. One month after my child was born, my husband divorced me.”
When Mahparwar saw that crying and pleading were getting her nowhere, she decided to take legal action against her husband and seek justice.
“It was during the republic era [previous government], and everyone said that if you complained to human rights, you would get your rights.,” she says.
“I went to the Human Rights Office in Mullah Ghulam, and I told them the whole story of my fate. They called my husband in, and despite several sessions, my husband refused to budge and wouldn’t agree to withdraw from the divorce.”
Despite his apparent disdain for daughters, her husband also would not allow their children to live with Mahparwar.
“In the end, I asked for just my infant daughter so I could raise her myself, but he still refused. At that time, power, connections, and influence were doing their work, and I had no power against my husband,” she says.
Marparwar recounts these heartbreaking stories with emotion, her voice struggling as her throat tightens. Tears flow from her eyes, now lined with wrinkles.
“Tell me, what crime did I commit that they caused me so much suffering? Was it my fault? If it wasn’t, why does everyone think I am the one at fault?”
Two years later, another man came to ask her for marriage. Since she had no fixed place to live, she agreed to marry again.
But Mahparwar would soon discover this man only wanted a wife to bear him a son. After their second daughter was born, this man also abandoned her.
“One day, my husband called me and told me, ‘I married you with the hope of having a son, but maybe God doesn’t want me to have a son,” she says.
“Now that it’s not meant to be, I can’t live with you any longer. Take your daughters and go.”
And with that, she was an outcast once again.
Mahparwar still lives with her two daughters, who are now seven and five years old. Her first husband has passed away, and the youngest two daughters from that marriage have also come to live with her.
Now, she is a woman alone, struggling with poverty.
She must care for her four daughters, none of whom have a bright future awaiting them in Afghanistan.
Note*: Name is changed due to security reasons.
