Color Themes

Today I’m taking a slight departure, but I’ve been touched by a story and fellt compelled to share. I just reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, (also authored of The Kite Runner), a wonderful book but a horrid story at the same time.

I’m so upset by stories about the crimes against the people of Afghanistan committed by their own regime. Although we hear about it in the news, it is not magnified nearly enough in my opinion. If only I had enough guts to go over there and help, but of course I’m fearful that I could also be a victim, as most women there. Not only women but the children are being tortured as well, like 7 year old Samia. She is only one story but I’d like to share this one that I found on this Rawa.org.

7 year old Samia has a shocking story. She is one of tens of thousands of Afghanistan’s girls who fall victim of family violence in the male-chauvinistic society where fundamentalists promote and support dirty misogynistic customs.

Two years ago, the father of Samia raped a 10 year old daughter of Mohammad Yassin in Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan. When he was arrested, according to the customs of that area which are called “Bad”, he is asked to give his daughter to a son of Mohammad Yassin, so the issue could be settled. He gives Samia to Mohammad Omer (son of M. Yassin) to marry.

Then Samia is taken to the house of M. Yassin where she is regarded as a slave and for two long years experiences every kind of torture and discrimination. The family daily beat the innocent child and locked her down in a dark basement. They injured her body by using hot metal pieces, pulled her hair, kept her naked and force her to stay outside in the freezing weather for hours and many other such bestial punishments.

Finally, some people of the area came to know about the crimes being committed against the child and they decided to release her from the horrible sufferings. The people forcibly entered the house and brought Samia out and handed her over to the security officials. M. Yassin and his son ran away and the people couldn’t arrest them.

In a country where warlords and Jehadi mafia dominate the whole society and the most dark-minded fundamentalists are in power, there is no law and order to prevent such terrible crimes. Inhuman customs and family violence can easily target innocent children and women when these victims are not supported by executive, legislative and judicial bodies. In Afghanistan most of those involved in these type of criminal acts are the US-backed warlords who have guns, power and official posts so that no one can stop them.

I may not be able to go to Afghanistan but I might be able to contribute by creating more awareness. I am researching a few areas for donations. Khaled Hosseini suggests visiting Unrefugees.org. But it’s not just Afghanistan, there’s Ethiopia, India, Africa, Bangledesh, Guatemala and the list goes on.

Every day I get up and give thanks for all that I have in my life. There is no need to cry over spilled milk because we have so much milk, ya know? I may come from humble beginnings, but I realize that even when I worry about not having enough time or money, my problems are small in comparison. My cup runneth over and thanks to Samia and Khaled Hosseini, I won’t ever forget.

Subscribe to comments Comment | Trackback |

Post Tags:

Browse Timeline

Comments ( 3 )

[...] was really taken by a new book I’m reading by Khaled Hosseini called A Thousand Splendid Suns. From there, I found a tear jerking story on Rawa.org about a very young girl persecuted in her [...]

Weekly Hotlist for October 15th « The Right Color added these pithy words on Oct 17 07 at 12:05 am

Thank you so much for writing this. One of the most amazing things about writing a blog is that you have the power to make a difference every single day.

Sonia at Remarkable Communications did a great job of this too when she was talking about Smile Train’s efforts to give free cleft palatte surgeries in third world countries. I didn’t know Sonia and I didn’t know about Smile Train, but I still gave what I could when I read her post.

Please keep us posted about your donation research. The world has a lot of money to give, we just need a push to give it sometimes.