By Baran Yousfi
“Every time my husband comes home without finding work, he starts fighting with me,” Benafsha, 31, says. She and her husband lost their jobs after the Taliban took over full control of Afghanistan. They have almost nothing to live on.
But an empty table is not the only problem for Benafsha’s family of five. The nightmare of domestic violence darkens their home. She says her husband has beaten her many times in the past two years, especially in the past ten months. “Before the Taliban came and when we had jobs, our life was very good and happy,” she recounts. “Small disputes happen in every family, but the disputes had never turned into physical violence. Now my husband beats me with whatever he lays his hand on.”
Benafsheh was an employee of the human resources department of a domestic NGO, which was forced to close when the previous government was overthrown. She says dozens of women busy working in the organization became unemployed.
Her husband, who is 35, worked for the Independent Commission for Conflict Resolution and Public Relations.
“As soon as Kabul fell to the Taliban, they dissolved the institution where my husband worked and stopped the NGO working.”
Before the Taliban came to power, at least 26% of civil service employees in Afghanistan were women.
On the first day of taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban forbade women from going to government offices. More than 100,000 women became unemployed overnight. Later, women were banned from working in domestic and foreign NGOs. The exact number of those women made jobless is not known but runs into the hundreds. The unemployment crisis didn’t just affect women. Many men lost their jobs too.
Human rights organizations estimate at least 90% of Afghan people are facing poverty and lack of food.
Seven years have passed since Benafsha and her husband married. They have three children. The traces of the last beating from her husband can still be seen on her right hand and forehead. Benafsha blames unemployment and poverty for what her husband has become.
She lives in the Taimani area of Kabul. “I had a monthly salary of 22,000 afghanis, an amount equal to $260 USD and my husband earned 25,000 afghanis. A year ago, we were able to buy this four-room apartment from our savings of several years and with some borrowed money,” she says. “We paid the loan but after we lost our jobs, we had no savings. We sold my jewelry and two carpets to buy some food.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan (OCHA) says gender-based violence has increased by 25 percent since the Taliban took over. In a statement on July 18, the office said Taliban restrictions imposed on women, including banning them from public space, were the main factors for the increase.
Benafsha is a computer science graduate from Kabul University. Her marriage was based on an understanding of respect. She never imagined she would be subjected to physical violence.
With a pale face and disheveled hair, Benafshe recounts her husband’s violence. “Three days ago, my husband went out of the house to look for work. When he came back, I asked him, ‘Did you find a job? Without answering my question, he cursed and started beating me with a stick. He injured my hand.”
The violence has affected her children and left her with dread for the future. “When my husband beats me, my daughter, who is three years old, cries and screams. She is afraid. My son is six years old and he puts himself in between us and tries to somehow stop his father from beating me. If it wasn’t for my children, I would have committed suicide.”
Ferishta Mohammadi, a 28-year-old psychologist, says unemployment, poverty, and economic problems are at the root of domestic violence. She believes Afghanistan’s dominant patriarchal traditions have worsened the problem, making men think they can take out their anger on their wives.
Afghan women have always been subjected to physical, verbal, and psychological violence. However, in the past 20 years, efforts were made to reduce violence and defend women’s rights. Those achievements have been lost under the Taliban.
The Human Rights Commission, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and other institutions that worked to defend women’s rights and eradicate violence have been dissolved.
“There is no place to go and complain, no one to give you sympathy,” Benafsha says. “This is life and we have no choice but to endure it.”
