Working full time as a nuclear physicist in Australia, Dr Salehi did not expect to find herself working a second job in the restaurant kitchen. Nevertheless, the scars serve as an ironic reminder that many Afghan women live out their suffering in the domestic setting, struggling to have their human rights recognised.
The restaurant was established to provide work for Afghan refugees. It was nearly ten years before the restaurant was stable enough for Salehi to move on to other work, a far cry from the originally estimated three. Yet over 20 years later Dr Salehi’s attention is still directed at women in the domestic sphere in Afghanistan. Salehi plans to build a women’s health and vocation centre in Shamoli, north of Kabul. The centre will address some of the main issues that effect women—health and education.
Afghan women will vote for the first time since the fall of the Taliban in the upcoming October presidential elections. Their participation has been shadowed by intimidation and violence, the most horrific example of which was a bomb planted on a bus carrying female election workers. Two women were killed and others were critically injured.
That such incidences have occurred in outlying areas is an indication of the influence of neighbouring countries, Dr Salehi explains. She says that people who commit these crimes are often paid by foreigners. That is why she credits employment, together with health and education, as key issues in the minds of female voters.
‘Poverty brings war’, Dr Salehi says. ‘Working is an escape from war. If a man is unemployed and the Taliban offers to feed his children if he goes to war, what choice does he have?’
Without employment many women feel as though they lack honour. A woman begging on the street explained that though she is permitted to remove the burka she would rather wear it than be recognised and shamed. ‘When I have a job I will remove it’, she told Dr Salehi.
Afghan women may feel a lack of honour, but in the eyes of Dr Salehi, they do not lack courage. She sees honour in their courage, in caring for their children and in maintaining the struggle for life.
‘The women don’t speak much, but when they do … ’ Dr Salehi pauses, shakes her head. ‘We accept death. We don’t own our bodies, we have them for a while. God created us and God will