AFGHANISTAN Woman takes on society’s taboos a tattoo at a time
KABUL — A female tattoo artist, a rarity in ultraconservative Afghanistan, is taking a big risk with every customer she takes on.
It’s been 18 months since Suraya Shaheedi started her mobile tattoo shop in the capital, Kabul. She’s received death threats for taking on the taboo of the inkonskin drawings she does — as well as being a single woman willing to work with men.
“I have struggled a lot, even been threatened with death, because people in Afghanistan think doing tattoos is haram,” she said, using the Arabic word meaning prohibited by religion.
“Whether my customers are men or women doesn’t matter to me. I do tattoos for both,” says Shaheedi, a 26yearold, divorced single mother.
In a black curtained room, surrounded by his friends, a young customer shrieks in pain as the needle pierces and inks his skin.
“I can’t leave the profession I love,” Shaheedi adds.
She easily gets customers, whether men or women, as social attitudes toward tattoos loosen up and more ink parlors open. It’s the kind of small, but important change that Shaheedi feels a return of Taliban rule could threaten.
After decades of war, Afghans want peace. A big concern for many like Shaheedi is that U.S.led peace talks with the Taliban will boost the militant group.
“I am happy if the Taliban return results in peace, but if they disagree with my work and impede the freedom and progress of women, then I will be the first to stand against them,” she vowed.
Women like Shaheedi have carved out a space for themselves in a society where custom heavily restricts women’s roles and education. Close to 40% of Afghanistan’s eligible girls are not allowed by their families to go to school, and almost 20% are forced by their families to leave school after grade six, according to a survey by the Asia Foundation released this year.
In areas under the Taliban, who now control or hold sway over roughly half of the country, women are not allowed to leave their homes without a male escort. The insurgent group ruled Afghanistan with a harsh version of Islamic law from 1996 to 2001, when the U.S. invaded.
Shaheedi divorced her husband eight years ago while she was pregnant. She and her son now live with her parents. Her father supports her work, even though Afghanistan’s patriarchal society often forbids a woman from touching a man to whom she is not related or married.