Tradition Traps Widows

Sahra, 22, has come to the ministry of women's affairs from her native Wardak, seeking support. Her burka has been thrown up to reveal a tense, pale face, and dark, red-rimmed eyes.

"If they cannot help me, I will kill myself," she said.

Sahra is a widow, and wants to marry again. But her brother-in-law will not allow it.

"If I marry someone else, he will kill me," she said.

Afghanistan is full of young widows. The wars and violence that have plagued the country for the past 25 years have decimated the male population. According to Fauzia Amini, head of the legal branch of the ministry of women's affairs, "The large number of widows is due to the fighting that began when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979. This was followed by more fighting between Afghans themselves."

These widows are caught between Afghan culture and Islamic law. According to Afghan tradition, they can only marry close relatives of the deceased husband. But six years ago, during the Taleban's ultra-conservative reign, its leader Mullah Omar issued a decree allowing widows to marry whomever they wished.

Since the fall of the Taleban, a little over three years ago, the temporary freedom of choice accorded them has eroded, leaving a woman who has lost her husband very little choice about her future. If she is allowed to marry again, it will be to her brother-in-law or another close relative in her husband's family.

Soraya, 24, has been a widow for the past three years. She told IWPR, "My father-in- law wants me to marry his 13-year-old son, who is also disabled, but I don't want him." Soraya said her father has quarrelled with her father-in-law, and she is afraid it will escalate into violence.

Soraya may well be trapped. Once a woman is married, under Afghan tradition, she becomes a member of her husband's household, and hence is subject to the will of her husband's father.

As Haji Raza Khan, 60, whose own son has died, leaving a bereaved wife, put it this way, "If a widow leaves the father-in-law's home, it is as if she is running away." A widow should marry her brother-in-law, he added, otherwise she should stay in her father-in-law's home.

The government is attempting to help. Fauzia Amini told IWPR, "The custom of forcing a widow to marry her brother-in-law or another close relative of her dead husband is very bad; we are trying to break the hold these traditions have on the population."

The ministry is working with mullahs, or religious leaders, she said, to try and get more freedom of choice for women whose husbands have died.

Islam does not dictate that woman must marry within her husband's family, say religious scholars. Shaikh Zada, a mullah from Kabul province, said that those who refuse freedom of choice for widows are foolish, and do not know the dictates of their religion.

"Islam allows widows to marry relatives or non-relatives alike, provided that the person she marries, is Muslim," he told IWPR. When asked whether he agreed with the Taleban's ruling on this subject, he said, "This is the will of Allah and his Prophet, not of Mullah Omar."

But tradition dies hard in Afghanistan.

Hanifa, 27, cannot read or write. She has been a widow for the past 12 years. She told IWPR, "When Mullah Omar issued his decree, I married someone who was not a relative of my husband. Three years ago, when the Taleban were defeated, my brother-in-law took my four children away from me."

Now Hanifa has two children with her new husband. But, she said, "My former brother-in-law has sent me a letter, saying that now there are no Taleban, I will not let you live." She, too, has come to the ministry of women's affairs for help.

But the ministry can only do so much and many observers agree that traditions here are hard to break.

"This depressing phenomenon is due to the low level of knowledge in Afghanistan," said Ahmad Shad Mirdad, a department head in the Independent Human Rights Commission. "Until people learn more, these traditions will not diminish."

Shahabuddin Tarakhil is a staff reporter with IWPR in Kabul.