In lawless Afghan province, ‘no value,’ no justice for women

There are three versions of how Tabaruk, a mother of six, died this spring during a journey through treacherous snow-covered mountains in Afghanistan.

She and her family had been expelled from their village in Ghor province because her teenage daughter, Mah Yamsar, was said to have brought dishonor by becoming pregnant out of wedlock.

The police in Ghor say Tabaruk fell off her horse and died.

Members of the provincial council say she was pushed off a cliff, and then tied to a horse and dragged around until dead.

A third version of the story was told to Mah Yamsar by her 8-yearold brother, who was traveling with Tabaruk at the time. “They killed my mother with the bullets of a gun,” the brother recounted.

If Afghanistan is one of the worst places to be a woman, then Ghor, a province so lawless that people often wonder if there is a government there at all, may be the country’s capital of genderbased violence and abuse.

“There have been 118 registered cases of violence against women in Ghor in the past year, and those are only cases that have been reported,” said Fawzia Koofi, head of the women’s rights commission in the Afghan parliament, who recently visited Ghor to raise awareness about the lack of justice. “And not a single suspect in these 118 cases has been arrested.”

“There is no value for women there,” Koofi added.

With a population of more than 700,000 and located in westcentral Afghanistan, Ghor is considered one of the most deprived provinces of the country. It has received little government attention over the years.

Koofi, the lawmaker, said the violence had its roots in tribal feuds. Also playing a crucial role in the violence, Koofi said, is the absence of the rule of law.

When security officials are pressed on the situation in Ghor, Koofi said, they say they have to balance justice with security — and that if they go after the perpetrators, they will side with the Taliban.

The daughter, Mah Yamsar, says she was at home last year when a neighbor, Sayed Ahmad, raped her. She hid the episode from everyone, until her body started changing, and she realized she was pregnant. Her mother become her secretbearer and helper.

Ahmad had pills delivered to Mah Yamsar that would help her have an abortion, which occurred in the seventh month of her pregnancy. Mah Yamsar went to the hospital and stayed there for eight nights, needing two blood transfusions.

When she was discharged and returned to her village in the Dawlat Yar district of Ghor, elders gathered for a council to decide the family’s fate. Tabaruk and her husband were in attendance, as was Ahmad, the accused rapist, but Mah Yamsar was not.

“He said, ‘I won’t swear on the Quran, but I did not rape her,’ ” Mah Yamsar said her mother told her about Ahmad’s words at the meeting. The village council, swayed by Ahmad’s powerful relatives, said Mah Yamsar’s family had brought dishonor on the village. “Load up, and leave this place,” the family was told.

Mah Yamsar, still recovering from the abortion, was put on a motorcycle. Her mother rode a horse, while her father, her brother and two village elders, both men, followed behind.

Mah Yamsar arrived before her family in Kharsang, also in Ghor, where the family planned to start a new life. Her mother never made it.

At first, her father said Tabaruk would come. Then he said she had fallen off the horse and died.

But her brother said their father was lying. His father and the two village elders took Tabaruk off into the distance, telling him to stay behind. When they returned, his father said Tabaruk had fallen off the horse.

But the child told Mah Yamsar he heard gunshots.