Women.

Truly inspiring.

Women in Afghanistan are among the most vulnerable in the world, with a literacy rate of only 14 percent and one of the highest maternal mortality rates anywhere. Years of war and strict religious mores, that confined many to their homes, have both contributed to and compounded these problems. Particularly under the Taliban, millions of women were banned from working and going to school.

But today, observers say, women are actively building a better Afghanistan, often in small and subtle ways. In the Kabul workshop of Suraya Parlika, a pioneering female entrepreneur, Pashtun Begum and 29 other women - mostly widows, beggars, and orphans - spend the afternoon learning how to turn crude pieces of marble into polished works of art, receiving $25 a month as a stipend. When they're ready, they'll strike out on their own, selling the items themselves.

It doesn't seem like much, eh? But put things into perspective :

Women there aren't meant to do much beyond baby-making and taking care of the menfolk. As a highly enforced Islamic-structured nation, women weren't supposed to venture out of their homes, be seen with anyone but their family's menfolk, and basically got the short end of the stick in almost every way.

To find that they have been allowed to work for themselves, to earn money for themselves, to have some modicum of control over their lives.... that's fantastic.


I think Muslim women in Singapore have it great.