Afghan Prison Project: Inside a women's prison in Afghanistan

Our work in the Herat prison began with a performance and is continuing with workshops. Here I will share with you what it is like inside an Afghan women's prison and why the women are there.

The Prison

The women’s prison is in a different compound from last time we were here. Their prior location was adjacent to the men’s prison and was needed for overflow of male prisoners. It’s a good thing they moved, as there had reportedly been a problem with sexual abuse by the male guards, and now the women  have their own separate location with only female guards. In addition, the new compound looks less like a prison. Instead of being stuck within a concrete enclosure with bars on the windows and heavy metal doors, the women can move freely between buildings and the surrounding open space of the courtyard. Laundry hangs to dry between a few trees. The 140 women sleep in communal dorm rooms with bunk beds, colorful blankets, and television. They don’t wear uniforms like in American prisons; they wear personal clothing as well as jewelry and make-up. This already makes for a more humane experience. From what I understand, the women can spend the day as they wish, and have available various activities supported by different NGO’s – tailoring, rugmaking, hairdressing, literacy classes, and an agricultural program where they learn to plant vegetables.

 

We met with the director of the women’s prison, an affable but authoritarian woman in her fifties. She told us she does not want the prison to look like a prison but instead like a dormitory with supportive activities for the women. She greatly welcomed our program.

This sounds very promising, and the conditions for the women do not seem so bad. Still, it is a prison and the women do not have their freedom. They are imprisoned within walls and don’t have control over their own lives. Of course, for many this may not be very different from their prior circumstances: many women in Afghanistan are not allowed to leave the house and all their activities are controlled and restricted by their husband, father, or brothers. Quite often they are beaten and abused. In fact, young women are sometimes driven to such desperation that they try to commit suicide by setting themselves on fire. The level of brutality that women and girls in Afghanistan have to suffer is difficult to grasp. For some, prison must be preferable to what they endured outside it. Even so, to be in prison carries stigma, knowing you have been shamed and shunned by your community and family, stamped as a criminal and punished by society. While before you were controlled by your family, now you are controlled by the state. Your life is not your own. And there is little hope for the future.

The Women

Given these difficult circumstances, many of the women are depressed and suicidal. Some are self-harming and cut themselves. One day we arrived for workshop and a woman came up to us and showed us her wrist, which had two deep burn marks. She had burned herself with a cigarette. I asked, why did you do that? She said, I was so full of angry feelings! She had wanted to see the doctor and the guard wouldn’t let her. Our fellow workshop leader, one of the young women from Simorgh Theatre, said she felt sick to her stomach when she saw the injuries and she just couldn’t understand how this woman could do this to herself. But in the face of such utter lack of control and power over one’s life, this is sometimes the only way a person knows to cope and manage intense feelings and distress. This is why we are doing the workshops, to give these women an outlet in which they can express their feelings – and find more constructive and creative coping mechanisms.

It is no wonder these women are depressed and frustrated when one learns the reasons they are there in prison. Many if not most are in prison for adultery--that is, they had sex outside marriage. This is a crime in Afghanistan. A girl falls in love with a boy; they have relations; now they are both in prison. Some women run away from home. This is not a crime per se, but it is assumed that they engaged in illicit relations. It is almost impossible for a woman to prove her innocence. Women routinely have to submit to virginity tests, an extremely violating procedure that effectively proves nothing. And certainly not if you are a married woman. In many instances, the women have engaged in sex, but whether they were truly willing is questionable. It comes down to this: if a woman wants to escape her home, she needs the help of a man. The price for this is sex.

Why does an Afghan woman feel compelled to leave her home? Primarily it's because of forced marriage and abuse. Many of the women in the prison spoke of the problem of marrying too young. As I was repeatedly told, “a daughter is a toy to her father and a slave to her husband.” But it does happen that she runs away for love. A 17-year old girl in the prison ran off with a young man she loved, but since they now agreed to marry, they will both be released. This is one story that has a happy ending, but other girls are not so lucky. The boy no longer wants them, and now they are stuck in prison. After that, where can she go? Often the family will not accept her and may even threaten to kill her as she has now brought “dishonor” on them all.

It’s one thing to marry your lover in order to get out of prison, it’s another to have to marry your rapist. Even in the case of rape, a woman will be sent to prison for adultery! Because technically she has had sex outside of marriage and how can she prove she wasn’t willing. No one believes her. But if she agrees to marry her rapist, then all will be forgiven. What a horrible choice to have to make.

If a married woman is raped, the husband will rarely be able to accept it. In one recent case, a woman was raped by her husband’s brother, but the husband accused her of having an affair. The brother fled to Iran. The woman was sent to prison. She was pregnant but the husband refused to acknowledge the child as his and divorced her. She was released after eight months. The usual sentence for adultery is 1-3 years. It is enough to be accused of infidelity by your husband to get locked up. Many women and girls seemed to be in prison based simply on someone’s accusation.

Some of the women are in prison for killing their husbands. No doubt these are desperate acts. Many women in Afghanistan are married off very young and then terribly abused by the husband and his whole family. But in some cases, the woman loved someone else and together they conspired to kill the husband and run away. The desperation is still there but the justification is sometimes questionable.

It was challenging to learn the real reasons why the women were in prison, because, we were told, the women will often make up stories until they feel safe in speaking the truth, or if they think they might benefit from it. But I also felt it was difficult to get accurate information from those we spoke with in prison management and others in authority; they seemed too ready to dismiss the women’s circumstances. I sensed some resistance to acknowledge the problem of rape. They said they had never come across a woman in jail who was there because she had been attacked, that the women all did it willingly. And yet after further probing, complexities emerged that show how difficult the situation is for women. They finally acknowledged the challenge that exists for a  woman to be able to prove her innocence and how often she is in a compromised situation. The system is set up to fail these women. No matter the crime or reason, the real problem is they have very little chance to defend themselves or escape their circumstances.

Their Stories

The prison psychologist highlighted a few particular cases where she felt the women really were innocent:

·         One woman killed her husband with the help of her 14-year old son, because the father was a drug addict who tried to rape their 9-year old daughter. Now both the mother and her son are in prison. The mother was sentenced to 16 years.

·         A young woman had been beaten by her father so severely in her childhood she didn’t walk until she was six years old. When she got older her father wanted to marry her off, but she refused. In a final act of desperation, she put gasoline on her father and burned him. She is sentenced to 18 years.

·         The psychologist spoke to us also about kidnapping and how entire families are swept up in the crime. A father and a brother may have conspired to kidnap someone for money. The police then raid their house and arrest everyone: the mother, the daughters, the sister-in-law, the grandmother, and everyone goes to prison. There are two young women in prison now for this crime. One was jailed at age 14 and sentenced to five years.

These are the stories of the women we met:

·         “A” has been in prison two months now. She killed her father because he was forcing the mother to have “temporary marriages” with other men (that is, sex for money). Finally the daughter couldn’t take it any longer. She took her brother’s gun and shot her father. Then she went to the police and said: “I have killed my father and I am happy I did it!” She is ashamed that he was her father, and proud she killed him so that her mother doesn’t have to be “married” to another man again. "A" has a one-month old baby with her in prison. I don’t know how long she has to stay there.

·         B is a feisty and outgoing young woman of 17 years old. She had an affair with a neighborhood boy. A couple of months later she got married, but her husband discovered she was not a virgin. So she said she had been raped. Her husband wanted to kill the other boy. But the neighbor called the national army for help and said the husband had a gun and also that he and B had stolen money. The national army came and beat up the husband so he ended up in the hospital. B had an altercation with the neighbor's daughter and cut her with a knife. Everybody was arrested, including the neighbor's daughter because she knew about the illicit relation and had not reported it, and was therefore accessory to the crime. The husband has now been released as well as the neighbor's daughter, but B and the neighbor boy were just sentenced to six months in prison for adultery. A complicated situation! B has a lot of anxiety and nervous problems. But she is very enthusiastic about the workshops and fully engaged. She’s our star participant. She even stayed up one night until one a.m. teaching the others in her room all the exercises she had learned!

·         C is in her early twenties and also very excited about our workshops and a main participant. She has been in prison for 7 months and has a 10 month old daughter. Her situation is a bit unclear. She had problems with her husband, and apparently he accused her of stealing and got her put in prison. The husband has now divorced her. She is about to be released and says her family supports her. But the first day we met she said to me that she wanted to find a family to take care of her daughter and give her an education, because if the daughter was left with her father he would marry her off early as he did her. She is so inspired by the workshops that she wants to continue doing theater when she gets out.

·         D is 27 years old. She was married at 15, but the husband became addicted to opium. He would beat her and her child. She says her father and mother-in-law encouraged their son to abuse her. They accused her of having sex with other men. She is now in prison for one year. She is worried about her 11-year old daughter who is with the in-laws; they don’t let her go to school and they hurt her. The daughter comes to visit the mother every two weeks and begs to stay with her in prison.

·         E is in her late forties and has a young child with disabilities. She has been active in all the programs the prison offers.  E has been in the prison 10 months and is sentenced to 16 years for killing her daughter’s husband. But she says she didn’t do it. I did not get to find out further and verify her story. Perhaps she did do it, or perhaps someone else did and she got the blame. Perhaps her daughter did it and she took the blame instead. There are several situations like this where the man died and the wife gets blamed for his death. There is little a woman can do to defend herself.

·         F is 22 and recently arrived in prison with her newborn son. She got there when her baby was 10 days old. Her husband’s second wife had died suddenly, and now she and her husband were accused of murder by the wife’s brothers. She is in prison pending investigation and autopsy, and is hoping to be cleared.

·         Then we have G who is 19 and was working as a police officer in Kabul. One day her brother called and said, “Congratulations! Your father has found a husband for you.” But she did not want to get married, she wanted to go to the university and continue her work. The family summoned her back to Herat. She met her prospective fiancé, but did not like him – so she shot him. Just like that. A counselor asker her, "Your father and brother come to visit you in prison often, they seem to love you very much. Why didn't you just ask them to please not make you marry?" She said, "I don't know, I just got so angry." She didn’t think the family would listen to her. She has now been sentenced to hanging. And yet she always seems to be in a good mood when we see her!

The women are very happy and smiling when we come, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t in deep suffering. What Afghan women have to endure is beyond what most of us can imagine. They are excited to see us because to them it means somebody cares and they are happy for the attention. The women are especially excited that two foreigners from America have come all this way to see them and help them. One woman told us “You are like a dream to us.”

The Children

The women have their children with them in prison. At first thought, this is very disturbing. But on the other hand, it's good for both the baby and mother to be together. Children stay with their mothers until the age of 5, when they are placed in a child support center run by a non-profit. We visited this center and will be doing workshops there as well. It’s a good place and the children genuinely seem well-cared for. This is really encouraging to see. They get to visit their mothers every two weeks or so. The smaller kids who are with the mothers in the prison get sent to a kindergarten every day, where government employees’ children go. This is also a new development and did not exist four years ago when we last visited (as far as I know). Then the kids were just stuck in the prison. I’m glad to learn they now have the opportunity to get outside and socialize with other kids. But a few of the children were always around when we were there; it wasn’t clear to me why they didn’t go to the child center. There are about 75 children living with their mothers in the prison. One girl was seven years old, but otherwise mostly toddlers and babies. We had several little ones crawling around us as we did our workshop. It was nice to see the women help each other take care of the babies, so that the mothers could participate. Of course, at times they had to take a break to nurse. Naturally, we accommodate this.

We have to be flexible in conducting our workshops and give consideration to the women’s circumstances. They are faced with daily challenges, and sometimes they are just too depressed to participate. But we have to keep showing up for them -- the workshops are ongoing so that they will have this support available for the long term.

 

The entrance to the women's prison   // Joanna and I with our two fantastic workshop leaders from Simorgh Theatre

(Click to view larger)

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Next up: a little about the actual work we're doing with the women!

The Women's Prison of Herat

    

As an introduction to our new project in the women’s prison in Herat, here is an account from my first experience in the prison in 2011 (a blog report that I never posted!).

* * *

April 2011

One of the most beautiful and devastating experiences we had in Afghanistan was visiting the women’s prison. 

The prison is located on Prison Street.  The front gate is flanked by gigantic cement planters filled with red pelargonia flowers overrun by barbed wire. Rather symbolic.

All the girls of Simorgh Theatre have their arms marked by the prison guard with signature and date in large red permanent marker across their forearm. This is so they can get out again! And not get confused for a prisoner. Joanna and I are spared the markings, no need.

We enter the courtyard where we are to perform and the women are already gathered waiting for us.

There are little children running around. They come right up to me and surround me, unabashed, unafraid, getting close to me with their little bodies, into my arms, face to my face, and hold my hands. So sweet. They’re two, three, maybe four years old. 

The children stay with their mothers in the prison until age seven and then go to relatives (or orphanage?). It’s not clear to me who decides this, does the mother have any say? Generally, as I understand, according to Muslim law, the child belongs to the mother until age seven and after that the father takes over and the mother no longer has any right to her children. I saw a couple of girls around age 10 or 12 as well, but otherwise they all looked under five. The presence of children is startling and disturbing, but also joyous – making it less oppressive, less like a prison.  Still, it’s a prison. It’s beneficial for the children to be with their mothers, but on the other hand it must be detrimental to their psychological well-being to spend their first formative years behind bars.   

The facilities, however, are so much more pleasant than one might expect of an Afghan prison, or any prison (certainly not like jails in the US). I think I had imagined dark, dank cells with dirt floors and perhaps rats, like dungeons. But these were more like dormitories. The floors are carpeted in dark red, and the rooms are large with bunk beds and colorful blankets and a TV set. The doors are left wide open, but perhaps that’s only for our tour. Then there are the children running about. There’s a playroom for them filled with stuffed animals and toys. And for the women there are occupational activities such as tailoring, embroidery, hair dressing and weaving. Another aspect that adds to a less prison-like atmosphere is the fact that the women don’t wear uniforms, they’re dressed in regular clothes of varying colors (i.e., regular Afghan clothing: tunic with pants, or dress, and headscarf or chador (long black sheet)).

But, the inescapable truth is they are in prison. And cannot leave. And it has severe social consequences.

Our girls perform their show about domestic abuse, specifically centering on conflict between a mother-in-law and her young daughter-in-law.  Domestic abuse is rampant in Afghanistan and not only from the husband but often from his entire family (mother-in-law, brothers, uncles, etc.), and the young bride is sometimes treated as a slave. Many of the young women at the prison are there because they ran away from home – from an abusive husband and/or abusive mother-in-law. Running away from home – whether your parents’ or your husband’s -- is a crime in Afghanistan.  A so called moral crime. Some have fled to escape the fate of an impending forced marriage, or to marry the one that they love, others to get away from an abusive home. The brutality of abuse, physical and mental, is beyond the imaginable.  It is so severe that young girls and women, married off as slaves to an older man and his family, burn themselves to death.  In the Herat area last year there were about 100 recorded self-immolations. That’s two a week! And yet, if these women run away, they are the ones who go to jail. Given their circumstances, prison is a better place for many of these young women. Indeed, having shamed the family by running away, they may very well get killed once they leave prison.

And yet, they are in prison, when they have done nothing wrong but eloping with their lover whom they wish to marry, or escaping an abusive home!  They have been deprived of their freedom for nothing.  This is so wrong and deeply upsets my sense of justice.  But most everything involving women in Afghanistan will upset one’s sense of justice and fairness.

Our show is very well-received. The women laugh a lot and break out in applause, spontaneously at certain dialogue. For instance, when a character speaks to the mother-in-law in a dream and talks about how it is possible to change. This is when I wish I understood exactly what was being said when (the show is in Dari) – what prompted them to clap? After the performance, we ask for feedback from the audience. The women say we should bring the show out to the villages. One woman advocated fiercely and enthusiastically for this. Afterwards Joanna and I go to shake hands with some of the women in the audience. I hunch down to say hello, “Tashakor, khob bud”? I can’t say much more, but smile with my hand to my heart. One woman who is further back in the audience calls out: “What is your name?” Another says: “My friend says thank you very much!”

 Two little children kiss my hand with a ritual of placing their cheek, then the other cheek, then their forehead on my hand (and then kiss).  An old woman kisses my cheeks and forehead and hugs me closely and strongly.

The women disappear behind the prison door manned by two female guards in uniform. Some then appear behind the bars of a window, and our girls gather to talk to them. “Where are you from? Are you married? Children?” And eventually the question – “Why are you here in prison?”

One says she killed her husband. Or rather that is what she was put in here for. She didn’t actually do it, but was accused by the husband’s brother. And that’s all it takes. A woman has no voice to defend herself. And even if someone did kill her husband she may have had cause, considering how horribly many women are treated.  But most of them are in prison simply for running away (as described above).

The women behind the bars of the window told the girls they can’t speak further about why they’re there because they’ll cry if they do, and the guards are there (they don’t feel comfortable to speak, or cry, in front of them).

The children sing us a song. They are lined up neat and tidy in a little square. We think, “Oh, how sweet that they sing for us.” But as we learn later the song they’re singing is about being abandoned and homeless! I decide to give the children the balloons I had bought the other day and I still had in my bag.

Our girls are really affected by this visit and especially because of the children. They are visibly taken and somber on the ride home. “The children…” one girl starts to say and breaks down crying. Another girl is crying silently all the way home. This whole experience touched her, I realize, on a very personal level. She’s facing an arranged marriage, and here are all these women who have escaped forced marriages either by killing the husband or running away. She sees herself in these women, her own future perhaps. Or at the least she acutely understands and feels their plight. Her parents want her to marry someone she doesn’t want to marry, but they insist and are not listening to her. She’s been very sad the last few days. I’m told she’s asking to join us a lot on our excursions, because she wants to get away from home. She’s 17, she’s not ready to lose her freedom. That’s it, her life will completely change. And there’s nothing we can do, to help her. I wonder what’s going to happen.

Our play about a mother-in-law who treats her son’s young wife badly has a happy ending. The mother-in-law in the end understands the error of her ways and reconciles with her daughter-in-law. They find a way to live happily together. Later I learn that one of the women in the prison came up to one of our girls and expressed how much she wished her mother-in-law had seen this play. She was in prison because she had killed her mother-in-law.

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P.S.

The girl in our troupe facing a forced marriage got a happy ending too. So far. Her parents relented and she did not have to marry. She has been able to continue with the theater. And she’ll be joining us on this new project in the prison!

Afghanistan: The Women's Shelter

The very first performance that our girls' troupe undertakes (outside of the try-out for family and friends) is a show at a women’s shelter in Herat.  The shelter is run by Voice of Women, an organization based in Herat led by Soraya Pakzad who has worked tirelessly since Taliban time to fight for women’s rights, and who started Afghanistan's first shelter in 2003.

 

There are about 40 women and girls at the shelter ranging in age from 15 to 25, and mostly under 20.  They are escaping abusive marriages, and in most cases forced marriages. Some were about to be married off and ran away beforehand.  They are lucky to have ended up here in the shelter, and not in jail or worse.  If they are caught by the police they risk getting raped and put in prison, and if sent back home they may be killed. 

Parwana, who works at VOW and is coordinating our visit, talks to me about the situation the women are in and decries the inhumanity of it all.  She exclaims, “they feel…!,” and searching for the words she utters something about “not human!”  I think she is saying the girls feel they are not treated as humans, but then I realize she is talking about the husbands, that they are not human the way they act.   And she tells me about one girl who came to the center.  The husband had cut off her fingers and slashed her face across the cheek from mouth to ear.  What kind of man would do such a thing?  And why?  (Beyond its senseless cruelty, it even seems senseless out of practicality -- now the husband has to look at her disfigured face, and how is she going to be able to do his cooking and laundry with her fingers cut off?  How does that serve him? But he doesn't think about this, he doesn't think at all.)  Both are true – the girls are not treated as human beings and the men are not acting as humans.  What we think of as human – humane – humanity… separating us from the beasts. 

Unfortunately, this girl’s situation is all too common. Beatings and barrages of mental abuse are an everyday occurrence for young wives in Afghanistan, perpetrated by the husband and any or all of his relatives.  Across Afghanistan, girls are forced into marriage and essentially condemned to life as a household slave.  Often the girl is young and the man much older.  It is not uncommon for a 12-year old to be married off to a 60-year old man!  Many of these girls are driven to such despair that they set themselves on fire and burn themselves to death.  It is difficult to fathom.  In the Herat area there have been 100 such self-immolations in the past year.  That’s two girls every week setting themselves on fire. 

I look at the women, at the younger girls, and wonder about each one’s circumstances.  But I don’t want to ask as it’s such a sensitive matter and I respect their privacy.  And it's time to start the show.

The women laugh a lot, and they applaud at the end of each scene!  The play is not necessarily meant to be that funny (although we have definitely incorporated some comic bits)...  After all, we’re dealing with a serious subject matter that we want to earnestly bring awareness to: the abuse that mothers-in-law so often perpetuate, and how it destroys families.  If women treat each other horribly, how can they make men treat them any better?  We want to make sure people take it to heart and are moved to make a change.  In this case, however, the laughter is good and it doesn’t mean they aren’t taking the play seriously or its message.  Presented and received as a comedy, it is easier to take in the play and what it addresses.  These women have lived through this, they don’t need to see it presented to them in a heavy and serious way.  This is how comedy can be cathartic, getting to laugh about something that is painful. The women gain some vindication in seeing their reality acknowledged.

But this is not enough.  In the Q&A afterward, one woman speaks up to tell us that we must show this play to the men, to the families, out in the community -- "they are the ones who need to see it, not us in here, we already know!"  She is adamant and angry – and we assure her that this is indeed our intent. As we leave, the woman thanks us for our visit and asks us when we will come again.   They rarely have any visitors, and hardly ever leave the shelter.  But this confinement is a blessing compared to the hell they were living before.

The shelter in Herat                                        We were not allowed to take pictures of the girls' faces

The wife in the story gets harassed on the street by two men

                                                                                                                  The husband beats his young wife while the mother-in-law eggs him on and joins in

We did it!  Our star performers after the show

Afghanistan: The play's the thing!

Having finished the workshops sessions, we embark on a period of play development and rehearsal with a select group of our young performers. Our mission is to create a show about a relevant issue, which we will perform out in the community as a way to bring information to people in the most effective way -- straight to the heart and minds through entertaining live action played out right before you, that is, theater! The goal is to bring the show to villages out in the provinces, but it depends on security and which areas are deemed safe. Our performers are all Hazara, an ethnic group often discriminated against by Pashtuns and Tajiks. We ask our young performers if they would be comfortable performing in a Pashtun village. One of the girls blurts out, “Sure, we could do it, but afterwards they’d probably hang us!,” and they all giggle. Then Rohela speaks up and tells us: “When we choose to do theatre it is our task and duty to reflect on the problems and pains in society. It is not important who is the audience, if we have an opportunity to affect a good change in people and society it is our task and duty to do it." Rohela is thirteen years old.

I am amazed at the talent, skill and dedication of these young performers, most of whom are only 12, 13, 14 years old! There are two girls who are 17 and 19, and then the boys are 16-21. During the course of our work, I forget how young they are, because they are so good, so dedicated and so professional! And they are tackling serious subject matters of family conflict and domestic violence, acting out beatings and abuse. But they are wise beyond their years and fully aware of the problems of their society. And, sad to say, many of the wives for whom this is a reality are only 14 years old (or younger)! Innocence of childhood is shattered early in this country.

In discussion with Monireh, the Afghan director, and with our young performers, we decide on the themes for our show. We are actually creating two separate shows. One by the girls to be performed for women, and one by the boys for the men. This creates flexibility to be able to perform in more restrictive places, and also gives us the opportunity to approach a theme from two different perspectives. Since we are supported by the U.S. Institute of Peace, we have been requested to do a show about conflict resolution. We decide to address the issue of family conflict and domestic violence.

The girls’ show is about a mother-in-law who abuses her daughter-in-law with constant put-downs and beatings. This is actually a big problem in Afghanistan. It is a pattern that gets repeated time and again. Often a young girl is married off to an older man who abuses her along with his grown sons and all other relatives around. Or a girl gets married to a boy -- both of them too young – with the boy trying to establish his manhood and beating his wife at the behest of his mother. A man might get a young wife just to be a slave to his mother. The mother was herself a young bride once who was mistreated by her mother-in-law. And so she perpetuates a behavior that has become ingrained. It is difficult to understand why women would stand against other women rather than stand together in this patriarchally oppressive society, or why a mother would discard her daughter, but it has to do with economics. A daughter brings no economic benefit, since women do not work, so she has no value (but to be a household slave).

In our story, the mother in law suffers from the bad memories of her own life as a young bride terribly abused, all the while lashing out at her young daughter-in-law, purposely getting her in trouble with her son, the husband, and beating her. One day, a friend comes to visit, catching her in the act of mistreating her daughter-in-law, and the friend berates her for it, telling the mother-in-law of her own misery having done the same. The friend’s daughter-in-law set herself on fire and killed herself as a result of all the abuse (this is a common occurrence in Afghanistan, I’m aghast to say!), now her son left her and she is all alone. The friend reminds the mother-in-law that she once was a young bride too. Slowly the mother-in-law realizes she is doing the very same that was done to her, and after some struggle, she decides she must and can make a change. In the end there is a reconciliation with the daughter-in-law. They realize standing strong together and supporting each other is a better way of living, and as a result, the son/husband also has a transformation.

- Photos from rehearsal -

The young wife gets harrassed
 by some guys on the street, 
and then accused by the mother-
in-law of enticing them

  Rohela as the mother-in-law

 





To develop the show, we start our young actors off with a simple scenario and let them improvise around it, playing with character and action. They make our job easy as directors, because they are so creative! Of course, they have a lot to learn yet about theatrical presentation and how to make strong, physical choices on stage, but they are impressively adept already. Such clever dialogue, improvised on the spot! And funny little character quirks. In less than two weeks, we have a half-hour play fully developed and ready to go – and it’s amazing how much our work and our actors have grown. Madiya and Hasti who play the two narrators have become a knock-out clown duo. They bring the audience along the journey and provide some comic relief. And they’re really funny! Marzia has really found solid strength in her portrayal of a man. And Rohela is truly an amazing actor – intensely expressive as the mother-in-law, showing both nasty cruelty and vulnerability. Her transformation in the moment of reconciliation with the daughter-in-law is full of so many emotions. It is a very touching scene. (I just can’t believe this young actor is only thirteen years old!)

 

 Mother and daughter-in-law reconciliation

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I hope Rohela can continue doing theater, and the other girls, too. But the risk is that in a few years they will be married (off) and that will be the end of it. To encourage their families and the community to accept theater as something good, indeed, to show that it is something that can bring income to the family, we are paying the girls (and boys, too) a fee for participating in the workshops and for their work as performers. See, theater brings economic as well as social benefit to the community!

For the first performance, we invite the performer's families and friends as well as all the workshop students. We present the girls' and boys' shows and then we have a certificate ceremony for everyone involved in the workshops. It is great to see the smiles on the parents' faces!