Samiul Bashar Samin
The way we perceive the image of a 21st century woman is one with confidence and with equal rights and opportunities as men (given that you’re egalitarian). However, the true horror that women still face on this planet is euphemized from what actually happens far too often. Forget rights, 3.3 billion people are subjected to inhumane conditions and violence.
Let’s take Afghanistan for example. Decades of war and terror have sent the once proud nation spiraling into darkness. The mean life expectancy of women in Afghanistan is 45, just one year less than the male life expectancy. Domestic violence runs rampant and more than half the brides there are below the age of 16. The biggest shocker still, is that Afghanistan is the only country where the female suicide rate is higher than that of males.
Iraq, the country that could once boast the highest literacy rate in The Middle East but with their dissent following the wars and inquisitions for “freedom,” Iraq has become a nation ravaged by war where parents constantly fear the possibility of kidnapping and rape if they send their daughters to school and to be completely honest, their fears are not completely unfound either. Women who used to work are now forced to stay home lying in fear of their lives.
Right now, the most dangerous place for a woman to be a woman is probably in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a war that had once claimed 3 million lives has been sparked into ignition and again. And women and children have been caught in the crossfire. The horrifying part is that genital mutilation and rape of women in DRC are actually carried out in a systematic manner and have been called “unprecedented” by the UN.
We cannot call ourselves civilized and get on the high horse of being a superior race when there is a still a mind-boggling number of people still plunged in darkness. Basic human right such as education and even safety is now in harm’s way and as long as there is even one human being in chains of injustice, we can never consider ourselves free.