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To: Mac Con Ulaidh who wrote (3995)11/18/2001 3:56:32 PM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (1) of 51710
 
<<The burqa hustler's blues
Burqa sellers are singing the blues in the capital of Afghanistan these days.

On Thursday, a TV news segment showed a shopkeeper in Kabul lamenting the lack of sales of the garments that have become infamous symbols of the Taliban's cruel treatment of women. As the camera scanned row after row of the pale blue shrouds on hangers, the merchant described how he used to sell 20 to 30 burqas a day. Now he isn't selling any, he said. Demand for the head-to-toe wearing apparel dropped to zero as soon as the brutal military regime left town.

After five years of enslavement inside these rayon prisons, many Afghan women continue to wear them, still too afraid for now to bare their faces to the sunshine. And who can blame them when the penalty for such conduct was a public beating from religious authorities? It is hard to comprehend what life was like for such women, their entire view of the outside world limited to whatever they could make out through a slit of mesh fabric. The indignity is almost too painful to imagine, a major reason why the female suicide rate soared under Taliban rule.

These days, the feared religious police are gone, but there are still cultural pressures to stay covered in what remains a strictly male-dominated society. Change will take time. Social progress is often achingly slow. For now, it is a small encouraging sign that a burqa peddler in Kabul may be going out of business. >>

azstarnet.com
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