Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan by Zarghuna Kargar Page A

asked her what had happened to make her feel like this. She said, ‘I’m used to seeing girls treated differently to boys, but I don’t think this mother would even care if her daughter died. Both her babies are six months old and the son is healthy and active, but the daughter thin and listless. I think she’s suffering from malnutrition. How can the twins be faring so differently? I’ve heard that the mother is breastfeeding the baby boy but has stopped breastfeeding the girl.’ Tabasum said this was because the mother believed the girl would one day be the property of another family, through marriage to someone else’s son, whereas the boy would make a family in his own parents’ home. He would bring a bride home and together they would one day care for his mother, so he needed to grow up healthy and strong.
    Tabasum and I worked on this story together, and were keen to know what the mother was feeding the daughter. When we asked her, she said, ‘I tried to give my daughter bottled milk but she didn’t like it, that is why she’s suffering from malnutrition. I’ve even had to take her to the hospital a couple of times.’ Tabasum was very worried about the baby girl, saying to me ‘Zarghuna Jan, when I looked at the baby girlshe seemed to be pleading with me to help her. She wasn’t kicking her arms and legs like a normal healthy six-month-old baby would, and I just didn’t know what to do or say. How could I tell her mother that what she was doing to her daughter was wrong when she believes what she’s doing is right?’
    As part of the programme we interviewed a doctor who explained how important it was for mothers to feed their babies properly, regardless of their sex. The doctor said, ‘Dear mothers, think about both your sons’ and your daughters’ future. Would you want your son to marry a weak and unhealthy girl? Of course not! Every daughter will one day end up living in someone else’s house, and would you want your future daughter-in-law to be so unhealthy and weak that she couldn’t give birth?’
    If mothers don’t treat their daughters equally then how can we possibly expect men to treat us equally? A number of women spoke to us about how some family members had made them feel inferior simply because they were female, with one mother of four daughters telling us, ‘Every time I’ve given birth to a girl, my husband disappears from the house for days. I’ve even heard of fathers who haven’t so much as held their baby girls for a year, or spoken to their wife for months because they believe she was to blame for giving birth to a girl.’
    As someone who grew up in a family of girls, I know just how much my mother suffered before she had my brother, but after listening to the stories of these mothers I felt both proud and lucky to be part of my family. Sharifa was not nearly so fortunate. She was a school friend when I was a teenager in Pakistan, and I’ve never been able to forget her story. It shows what happens to those girls who don’t have a brother, and to those mothers who don’t have sons.
    Sharifa and I were classmates in 1998 at the university for Afghan refugees in Peshawar, and at the time we both lived in a crowded neighbourhood populated mainly by Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban’s occupation of Afghanistan. She was the oldest of six daughters who hadbeen born with only one-year gaps between them all. Sharifa was usually full of energy and fun and loved messing around and playing practical jokes, and was popular with both her classmates and teachers. She was short with big green eyes, and I remember how she wore a dark blue hijab that was far too big and swamped her. I would meet Sharifa every day at a bus stop on the busy Arbab Road, which was always dusty and full of cars and lorries belching out fumes. This was at a time when very few women ventured out onto the streets, and as refugee students we were required to cover our heads and faces with large scarves. We