For the tenth year in a row, American troops will spend Thanksgiving in Afghanistan. This week, one decade ago, the remaining Taliban fighters were on the verge of surrender. Even without the repressive hand of the Taliban, however, this is still an extremely rare sight:
There are only about 15 women drivers in Kabul these days, as photojournalist and documentarian Nick Danziger, who took the image above, explains to me. (You can find two of them in the gallery of his photos below.) Yes, 15 in a city of around 3.9 million people, which means that your chance of randomly spotting one on the road is roughly equivalent to being struck by lightning.
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But spot one Danziger did, and the experience was similarly terrifying. His driver became so infuriated that he was behind a woman that he insisted on overtaking her on a two-lane road, nearly hurling into many other vehicles on the way.
“Women cause traffic accidents” is something Afghani men frequently say when explaining why they think women shouldn’t drive. And because they believe this so strongly, it manages to become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
“The Taliban is gone, but their minds are the same,” Danziger observes. And to these minds molded by the Taliban, a woman who can get herself anywhere on her own is somehow scarier than a woman police officer. (You can see two of those in the gallery below as well. Spoiler alert: They don't get guns, and sometimes they end up taking care of their children while on duty.)
Oxfam sent photojournalist and documentarian Nick Danziger to Afghanistan to examine the state of women 10 years after the fall of the Taliban. These are some of the women and stories he encountered. Read more here.
Policewomen in Kabul
Naseema and Nodia patrol Kabul's "Women's Garden. They eagerly point out that they earn salaries on par with their male colleagues. "My whole family is proud of me. My son always tells his friends, 'My mom is police, she knows about guns,' " one of the women told Danziger. They generally don't get to use guns, however, and sometimes can't avoid taking care of their kids while on duty.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
A Female-Run Surgical Team
Nurse Nazri works at the Rabia Balkhi Hospital, Kabul, on one of a small number of entirely female surgical teams in Afghanistan. Most work at the only women's hospital complex. None will operate on men.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Two Women, Just One Leg
Noorzia (right) age 10, lost her legs to a Taliban-planted landmine a year and a half ago. This is her first day walking on prosthetics at ICRC Orthopedic Centre in Kabul. Haseeba (left), who has been working as a cleaner for the last two and a half years, also has prosthetics. After losing her leg to a landmine, she said she felt despair. After getting married, she said she realized, “I can do anything: I have lost part of my body, but I have all of myself.”
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Facing Disability
Thousands of women have become disabled as a direct result of war injuries from landmines, bombs, shrapnel, and shelling. Although attitudes toward disabilities have improved some over the past 10 years in his experience, Danziger says, in some cases men simply don’t want the women in their family to see a male doctor.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Determined to Go Scarf-Free
Momand Shalizi and his daughter, Shamayel, returned to Kabul from the United States after the Taliban were ousted. Shamayel, 20, doesn't wear a scarf. “I refuse to. It's something I'd die for, but I wouldn't want all of us to turn into California girls either," she says. Shamayel, who is one of just a handful of women drivers in Kabul, is also determined to ride her horse through the streets of Kabul, a risky move.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
A Rare Woman Driver
There are only about 15 women who drive in Kabul, according to Oxfam and other estimates. Danziger just so happened to encounter this women on the streets. His own driver was so uncomfortable about driving behind a women—insisting that it was an insult—that he sped up and swerved around her. He did not have an opportunity to ask her name or her story before she drove away.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
A School Without Walls
This school in Parwan Province, which is supported by Oxfam and which has 900 girls and 100 boys enrolled, has no permanent structure. Although it’s easy to dismiss it as a lack of progress, Danziger says he was reminded here that change is sometimes less obvious. When he asked the girls in one class to raise their hands if their mothers could read, only three out of 36 raising their hands, meaning that the next generation was about to become dramatically more literate than the one before it.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
A Soap Opera Villainess
It's still difficult to find actresses for Afghan soap operas. At an open audition for Secrets of the Home, 350 people came, but only five were women. Parts were offered to two, but they came back saying their uncles or brothers wouldn’t let them do it. Aqeela Rezai (pictured), one of Afghanistan's most famous actresses, plays the villainess in this production. "If I didn't see changes in the way women are seen as a result of my work, I would stop. But I'm still here. Many people are changing." Aqeela is also a documentary filmmaker, she has made two films on women's role in Afghan society.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Alauhudin, Girls’ Orphanage
Nadjia’s uncle killed her father and tried to kidnap her. Her mother tried to keep her, but she remarried and eventually left Nadjia at the orphanage.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Looking Back at Her Younger Self
Nasrin looks at her portrait in Danziger's book, Onze Femmes, taken during a visit many years before. Nasrin has found it impossible to find work as a disabled widow. She lost her leg when she stepped on a mine that was in her garden.
Nick Danziger/Oxfam.
Danziger calls the experience with his hysterical driver “my most dangerous moment in Afghanistan.”
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This is quite a statement from a man who been visiting the country frequently since 1984 (when spotting women driving through the pre-Taliban streets was common).
His most recent trip was funded by Oxfam, who asked him to photograph the country in connection with a report on the state of women ten years after the U.S. arrived.
Some photojournalists are reticent to associate themselves with causes, but Danziger, who has published books, produced documentaries, and done editorial work for several magazines, insists that he doesn’t see much point to keeping his distance when it comes to tragedy. "How can you remain objective, when you know it is wrong?” he recently told the Telegraph.
While some of his photos highlight the great challenges that women still face in Afghanistan, he emphasizes that sometimes the story is less bleak than it looks on the surface. For instance, the image below, of girls in a school without walls, may look depressing. But when he asked the students if their mothers could read and write, only three out of 36 raised their hands. In other words, this generation was about to become dramatically more literate than the one that came before.
Amid interviews with women that included police officers, surgeons, soap opera stars, cleaning ladies, frustrated widows, and hopeful wives, the greatest surprise, Danziger says, was that these women wanted foreign troops to stay. Every single one of them.
“We criticize Afghanistan’s treatment of women, but we don’t listen to Afghan women,” he laments.
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