KABUL. Suomesta palautettiin kymmenen afgaania Kabuliin viime maaliskuun lopulla kohun saattelemina. Palautuksia vastustettiin Helsingissä mielenosoituksin vedoten Afganistanin huonontuneeseen turvallisuustilanteeseen.

Viime lokakuussa Suomi allekirjoitti Afganistanin kanssa sopimuksen, joka helpottaa afgaanien pakkopalauttamista. Sen jälkeen Suomesta on pakkopalautettu Afganistanin pakolaisministeriön mukaan yhteensä 13 afgaania.

Suomi ei ole ainoa pakkopalautuksia tekevä valtio.

 

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Tarana, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, is a 19-year-old woman living in Kabul, Afghanistan who recently divorced her husband and had an illegal abortion in secret. If authorities were to find out, she would either be fined or arrested.

Abortion is illegal in Afghanistan — even in cases of rape or incest — except if the mother’s life is in danger or there is a risk of the child being born with severe disabilities. The country’s birth rate is 4.8 children per woman, which is the highest in Asia (though is significantly lower than it was under Taliban rule, when girls weren’t allowed to attend school). Birth control is not illegal in the Muslim-majority country, though it is taboo and often difficult to access.

Tarana told her story in Dari through a translator to Maija Liuhto.

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I was born during the last years of the Taliban rule. My family lived in Maidan Wardak, a province that is too dangerous to visit today. Taliban fighters are everywhere now. During those days, there was peace but women could not go to school or work. If a woman wanted to go outside, she had to wear a burka that covered her from head to toe and she had to be accompanied by a male chaperone.

Luckily, the Taliban regime fell when I was three. We moved to Kabul and I was able to start school.

Although my family was quite progressive when it came to women’s education, marrying someone of my own choice was out of question.

My family decided to marry me off when I was only 17 years old. The man was a 28-year-old uncle of a family friend. He wasn’t educated and was only a driver, whereas I had studied until the 12th grade. Our marriage ended up lasting only two years.

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Late one night in February, villagers in the Dast-e-Archi district of northern Afghanistan heard strange sounds from the nearby Panj river, which marks the border with Tajikistan.

One farmer said he saw the bright lights of planes landing close to the riverbank, just inside Afghan territory in an area controlled by Taliban militants.

Word of American airstrikes or raids against insurgents travels fast in Kunduz province, but the next morning no one had any information about such an operation. The villagers concluded that the planes belonged to another powerful country seeking to press its influence in Afghanistan.

“It would have had to be the Russians,” said the farmer, who asked to be identified as Gul Agha. “These areas are outside government control so the question is raised, why were the planes landing there?”

Reports have swirled for months across northern Afghanistan that Russia is increasing its support for the Taliban, providing weapons and financing to the militant group that has battled U.S. and international forces since 2001.

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Poliisit vartioivat pientä moskeijaa Kabulin länsilaidalla kuulaana iltapäivänä maaliskuun alussa. Moskeijan ulkopuolelle on ripustettu kuva keski-ikäisestä miehestä, joka seisoo puvuntakki päällä Paratiisin puutarhassa. Kuvan alakulmaan on maalattu verilammikko, jonka päällä lukee darin kielellä sh…

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YKSI Afganistanin pääkaupungin Kabulin ruuhkaisimmista kaduista on suljettu rekkapommin pelossa. Turvajärjestelyt ovat huipussaan, koska porttien, muurien ja rynnäkkökiväärein aseistettujen vartijoiden takana kuvataan Afghan Starin finaalia.

Afghan Star on American Idol -tv-ohjelman afganistanilainen versio. Se on ollut jo kaksitoista vuotta yksi Afganistanin suosituimmista tv-ohjelmista, Talebanin uhkauksista huolimatta.

Tänä vuonna laulukilpailun finaaliin pääsi ensi kertaa nainen, 18-vuotias Zulala Hashemi.

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Inside a posh shopping mall in Kabul, a quiet gender revolution is under way. Compared to other movie theaters in Kabul, the cinema inside, the Galaxy Family Miniplex, looks tidy and modern. But the biggest difference is the audience.

“Here you see women coming in often without a mahram [an unmarriageable family member, which for women can also be an escort] and you feel free,” says 29-year-old Rohina Haroon. The Galaxy Family Miniplex is Afghanistan’s first cinema for women; Haroon has been there four times.

For the past 15 years, cinemas have been almost exclusively men’s territory in Afghanistan, considered off-limits and inappropriate for women…

 

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OMITUISEN rauhallista.

Näin monet kuvailivat Kabulin tilan­netta vielä viikko sitten, kunnes taas räjähti. Pommi-iskuista on tullut niin arkipäiväisiä, että parin viikon tauko tuntuu aina pahaenteiseltä.

Kabulissa ei koskaan voi tuntea oloaan täysin turvalliseksi…

 

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KABUL. Hallintovirkailija Mohammad Shafi, 37, oli lähdössä kotiin työpaikaltaan Afganistanin korkeimmasta oikeudesta. Yleensä hän viipyi tahallaan yli työajan, koska tiesi, että terroristit saattavat iskeä iltapäiväruuhkassa. Mutta helmikuisena tiistaina hänellä oli kiire kotiin perheensä luo.

Työpaikan pihalla odotti terroristijärjestö Isisin itsemurhapommittaja, joka räjäytti itsensä aivan Shafin lähellä…

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On the side of a busy street in Kabul, Afghanistan, there is a restaurant that feels like an oasis away from the traffic jams, constant smog, and terrorist threats. Soothing piano music plays in the background as groups of young women enjoy traditional Afghan dishes. Bost, a restaurant for women — and entirely run by women — opened its doors in the capital of Afghanistan in September last year. Here, women can feel sheltered from the prying eyes of men for a while…

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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—It is Friday noon in Kabul, Afghanistan, and men dressed in traditional clothes hurry to mosques to pray in congregation. Friday prayers are usually men’s business, and during the Taliban rule in the 1990s, women were not allowed in mosques. But in one neighborhood in the city, an imam has kept the doors of his mosque open to women for 12 years now. He often preaches about women’s rights in Islam – that women are equal to men and have the right to work and study.

This is all because of a woman named Jamila Afghani and the gender-sensitivity training program she has created…

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