Women in Swat Valley Abandon Burqas

In February 2009, the Taliban swept into Mingora, Pakistan, the largest in the Swat Valley, putting women in Burqas overnight. They had no choice in the matter, unlike women in Western countries who choose to wear the burqa.

Sabrina Tavernise’s Mingora Journal attempts to describe the physical ways in which the women’s lives changed under their burqas. Read New Wardrobe Brings Freedom to Women in Swat.

While some Muslim women argue that wearing a burqa really isn’t that challenging, the women in Mingora Journal share a different story about life under their burqas.

“I felt like I was out of air,” said Zaida Bibi, a maid in a green shawl with flowers.

A woman walked through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Jalozai camp, northwest of Islamabad, Pakistan, in her burqa in June. A summer military operation drove the Taliban out of Swat.. Photo Ali Imam/ReutersThe burqa was not the worst of women’s troubles, but it was one of the most public displays of what the Taliban wanted of women — that they disappear. At first many women changed to a Persian Gulf niqab, with a slit for the eyes. But that was not enough for the Taliban, so the Afghanistan ghost style became mandatory.

“That’s when we started falling down,” said Shahi Begum, a 45-year-old primary school teacher. Like horses with blinders on, women lost their peripheral vision. Climbing into rickshaws became treacherous, as women gathered billowing material to sit in a small space. “Legs in one direction, hands in another,” Ms. Begum said.

Sharisa Rehman, a teacher who returned to her job at the Sangota Girls School on Aug. 3, said she still had difficulty thinking about the time she spent under Taliban rule. “I was bound like a prisoner,” she said.

I have quoted extensively, so as not to insert my own opinions into this article. We have numerous readers who argue that burqas and niqab’s do not limit a woman’s mobility, air flow or sense of self-realization. Anne

For most of our burqas comments and articles, read: While the World Debates Burqas, Fashion Designers Show Beautiful Abayas at Paris’s George V Hotel.