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October 13, 2008 |
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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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Reviewed by Sarah Coleman |
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Stories about the plight of women in Afghanistan don't often make news any more. There's a common perception that, since the Taliban were driven out of Kabul, the condition of Afghan women has improved – if not immeasurably, then at least enough to push it off the front burner of Important Global Issues.  cover, Forsaken: Afghan Women © 2007 Lana Šlezić, courtesy of powerHouse Books
Lana Šlezić knows otherwise. An award-winning Canadian photojournalist, Šlezić arrived in Afghanistan in 2004 on a six-week assignment, and was so intrigued by what she saw that she stayed in the country for two years. The result is her powerful and heart-rending book, Forsaken: Afghan Women, in which Šlezić documents Afghan women from all walks of life, from prostitutes and child workers to a female police officer in Kandahar.
This photographic survey is aesthetically stunning and very, very sobering. In the short introduction that opens the book, Šlezić describes watching through binoculars as an Afghan couple stops in a field so that the husband can beat his wife, then pick her up off the ground and embrace her before they walk on together. "To beat a woman is to love a woman," Šlezić is told by a young Afghan man. This sets the tone for a book in which women's quiet desperation exists like a constant background hum, relieved by occasional notes of hope.  Kuchi women - Women from the nomadic Kuchi tribe gather their belongings and prepare to steal wheat from a neighbouring farmer's field. Kuchi women are illiterate and have little or no access to education or health care. © 2007 Lana Šlezić, courtesy of powerHouse Books
Given the subject matter, it's surprising that Šlezić's images are intensely beautiful, replete with dramatic light and gorgeous colors. Often, there's a jarring disconnect between the image and its accompanying story (which we don't read until later – the images are presented on black pages without text). We see, for example, a woman hiding demurely behind a curtain, and a lovely young girl with cherry-red fingernails peeping from behind a wooden doorway. Then we learn that woman behind the curtain has been forced into prostitution and could easily be killed by her family to preserve its honor, while the vibrant 16-year-old behind the door is about to marry a man she doesn't know. Re-evaluating the images in the light of these stories, the women's resilience and good humor seem nothing short of miraculous.  School - Wind blows through war-torn Kabul theatre where, for a short time, girls went to school. © 2007 Lana Šlezić, courtesy of powerHouse Books Šlezić's visual acuity is complemented by her fierce commitment. It took many months before she became a welcome guest in many subjects' homes, and a year before the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission would share information with her. This patience and persistence paid off: she was able to visit a burn unit for women who self-immolated rather than face abuse at home, and was present just after Shaima, a beautiful 24-year-old TV show host, was murdered by her brother for having a boyfriend. The images she makes from these stories are some of the book's most powerful and disturbing.  Malalai-Malalai is the first police woman in Kandahar. Her father and grandfather were policemen before her. Unlike other women in the region, Malalai works alongside men, apprehending criminals and restoring justice in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. When working outside her home and office she is always armed beneath her burka. She is a mother to six children. © 2007 Lana Šlezić, courtesy of powerHouse Books
It's not all gloom and doom. At a circumcision party for a five-year-old boy, women dance joyfully behind closed doors; a group of young girls studies raptly in a disused Kabul theater. And Šlezić introduces us to Malalai, a famous female police officer in Kandahar who works under a long blue burqa, but who carries a gun and works the same beats as her male colleagues. A figure of enormous strength, Malalai works tirelessly on behalf of abused women. In two portraits here, she comes across as enormously tough, but warm-hearted and buoyant. That she exists at all offers a glimmer of hope: it's a sign that, given the right circumstances, Afghan society can break its tragic cycle of oppression against women.
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