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A woman’s struggle to obtain an ID in Afghanistan

I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. The sun was shining intensely as Farah experienced one of its hottest days. My brother and I left the house together. Like me, he had studied at school and university but was still unemployed. I had applied for a teaching job at a private school and needed an ID card for the hiring process. I lost my ID when we fled from the city to the village as the republic collapsed. 

I had to go to the district office to get a new ID. The Taliban forbids women from travelling without male guardians, which hinders their movements in remote areas dominated by patriarchal customs, backwardness, and deprivation.

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We waited for a taxi by the road connecting our neighborhood to the district. All the passengers inside the taxis were men. Most of the men had long beards and wore either caps or turbans. I could see that some vehicles had women hidden blue or black burqas in the back of vehicles, with children pressed next to them against the back windows. Even if taxis had space inside their vehicles, women and children — especially girls — were loaded into the trunk. The women and children knew where their place was, and, when a driver opened the trunk, they’d silently climb in and sit together.

We waited for a long time, hoping that I could sit in the seat with my brother, but no driver would agree to let me sit next to him. I eventually had to accept that my place would be in the trunk, in the space meant for luggage. A taxi stopped beside us. 

The driver: “Where are you headed, young man?”

My brother: “We’re headed to the district.”

The driver: “Get in. Are you alone, or is that woman with you?”

My brother: “No, there are two of us.”

 The driver: “Alright, let me open the trunk.”

I climbed in. It was about an hour’s drive to our destination, a route that felt like a journey through hell, as the confined space grew hotter and more stifling with each passing moment. The men were engrossed in conversation about farming, land management, and livestock, occasionally bursting into hearty laughter. Meanwhile, the women sat so silently that you could almost hear their breathing. The road was rough and bumpy, and at times, I felt as if I was riding on the back of a camel, not in a taxi. I think all the women felt as nauseous as me. 

The black-turban wearing driver looked at my brother and guessed that he wasn’t from the district. “Which village are you headed to, brother?” he asked. 

My brother: “I’m going to the district centre.” 

The driver: “Is all good?” 

My brother: “Yes, all good, I’m going to get an ID card.”

The driver: “You didn’t have an ID yet?”

My brother: “Not for myself; I’m getting it for my sister.”

The driver: “What does a woman need an ID for?” 

My brother, clearly irritated by the question: “A woman is a person too, uncle.” (In our province, we respectfully call elders “uncle.”)

The driver: “Sure, that’s true, but why bother with all this hassle just to get an ID now?”

My brother didn’t answer. After a moment, a passenger said, “If they don’t require a photo, it shouldn’t be a problem for women to get an ID. Sometimes, when they get sick and need treatment abroad, they need an ID to get a passport. One of our relatives had a wife with an incurable disease, but she didn’t have a passport to be taken abroad. She died.”

Another man jokingly added, “Why get your wife a passport? With the money you’d spend on a passport and treatment, just marry a second wife.” All the men laughed, except my brother.

Both my brother and I were burning up — not just from the heat but from the sting of the conversation, as well. But we kept silent until we finally reached our destination.

The white flag of the Taliban flew atop the mud-walled ID office of the district. A thick curtain hung between the three women and dozens of men waiting for their ID cards, blocking the view from both sides. The two other females were a woman who had come from the city like us, and a girl about 14 or 15 from the local area. She would nervously glance around whenever she heard a man’s voice, so she could quickly cover herself with her blue scarf if any unrelated man looked her way.

After a while, a man from inside the office called out, “Mazluma!” The girl immediately stood up, grabbed her child, pulled her scarf over her head, and went up to the window, saying, “I’m Mazluma.”

The man: “Who did you come with?”

Mazluma: “With my husband.”

The man: “Where is he? What’s his name?”

Mazluma: “He’s in the men’s line. His name is Haji Mullah Khan Muhammad.” 

A few more questions were exchanged between Mazluma and the statistics officer before she returned to sit beside me. I asked, “How many children do you have?” She answered, “Three.”

Surprised, I asked, “Three?” She nodded and replied, “Yes, one from my first husband, and two from my second.” 

Unable to hide my astonishment, I asked, “Why? What happened to your first husband? Did he divorce you, or did he pass away?” Mazluma replied, “I got pregnant when I was 13. After that, my husband was killed, and then they married me to his older cousin as a second wife.”

“How old are you? And how old is your husband?” I asked. She looked down at the ground and, with a bitter smile that pained her cracked lips, said, “I think I’m 15, but I don’t know my husband’s exact age — probably over 40, since his beard has turned grey and white.”

After that, we fell silent. A few moments later, Mazluma’s paperwork was finished, and she left. My mind was occupied with thoughts of Mazluma for the rest of the day. The hardships of the journey along with the stinging comments from the driver and male passengers seemed insignificant compared to what she was enduring. On the way back home, the taxi trunk felt more bearable in comparison to the cage in which Mazluma was trapped.

Sama is pen name of a woman freelance writer in Afghanistan. 

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