Afghan Women’s Rights, Better But Not Enough

Afghan women’s rights in bigger cities have improved drastically; millions of girls go to school, thousands of women have got jobs in the government and private sectors; almost half of parliament members are female and of course their presence is palpable in every places. Of course, this is not enough. In terms of freedom, there is not much changes in rural areas, women in rural areas of Afghanistan have better freedom than women live a sedentary lifestyle in urbanized areas (I intentionally use the words “sedentary and urbanized because city in its modern meaning does not exist in Afghanistan). Rural women work alongside men, use the same strength and time to feed themselves and their children. While urban women have to bear oppression and limitation from their men. This of course will take a more time to to be fixed. So, one might wonder what are the sources of the problems that Afghan women are grappling with? Well, the essential problem lies in poverty, however, other reasons like lack of education, increasing health problem, little options for widows and child marriage are strong causes than poverty itself.