In 1989, when the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan after ten years of intervention, the Mujahideen (Muslim

rebels) got into a civil war and the Taliban were now rising as the new despotic force from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban was a group compromised of young men and boys of the Afghanistan decent, but sporadically lived in an Afghan based society. Their goal was to turn Afghanistan into an Islamic state. According to amnesty.org, the women were discriminated for the crime of being born a female. The Taliban enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law which basically prohibited women from doing anything and restricted their freedom. In Hosseinis A Thousand Splendid Suns, Rasheed, Mariams husband, explains how he viewed the Taliban. Meet our real masters, Rasheed says in a low voice. The Taliban are puppets. These are the big players and Afghanistan is their playground (A Thousand Splendid Suns 274). Ever since the dictatorship of the Talibans from 1979 to 2001, Afghan women has had limited rights in their country. They are restricted from doing certain things or going to certain places, they cannot step on the streets without being harassed. Young girls as young as seven years old get abused or hit just for wearing a certain clothing piece that people might not approve of. The President of the United States of America stated on November 6, 2001, Women are imprisoned in their homes, and are denied access to basic health care and education. Food sent to help starving people is stolen by their leaders. The religious monuments of other faiths are destroyed. Children are forbidden to fly kites, or sing songs A girl of seven is beaten for wearing white shoes. President George W. Bush, Remarks to the Warsaw Conference on Combating Terrorism (state.gov).

Not only were the citizens of Afghanistan witnessing the abuse throughout their country, but it was broadcasted throughout the world to show the bestiality this country went through each day ceaselessly. The abuse on woman commenced immediately after the Taliban took power in Kabul, Afghanistans capital. As this violence occurred, many women were forced to leave their jobs, and schools closed down to prevent them from getting an education they want to succeed in for the future. They were forced to marry at an early age and many parents forced their daughters to live in Pakistan or Iraq to protect them from any danger that was ordained. Women were no longer able to live in their homes, support themselves and their kids, and had no choice but to sell their possessions or beg on the streets to get food and survive. Hosseinis two main characters, Mariam and Laila, show false feminism during the times when they would always return to the men no matter what the circumstances were, and obeying what theyre told to do and never refusing. Nana, who is Mariams mother, has a negative outlook on life and foreshadowed her daughters future by telling her: There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they dont teach it in school . . . Only one skill. And its this: tahamul. Endure . . . Its our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. Its all we have (Hosseini 1819). Showing the strength of women by having them be the beaten and miserable characters that fight to live throughout the novel, Hosseini did little to show the strength of the men that were in full power. He genuinely shows the more powerful side of women because thats his main focus, to tell share the voices of these women. Then men are like traps and the women are baits; Hosseini does this to make the readers sympathize and fell despair. He states that in an interview with achievement.org:

it's a story [(about the women in Afghanistan)] that is still developing today and that has not resolved. We still have many of those problems in Afghanistan today, even though it doesn't get as much press. Those problems are still very real today I felt a personal sense of passion to tell that story. When it comes to our government in the United States, Hosseini does a swift job of actually making readers feel appreciative of their country. As mentioned in an interview with achievement.org: Yeah, I think the [delicate balance between portraying violence and brutality, and exploiting the suffering of others] is legitimate if those things are being written about merely for the sake of shocking, or for the sake of the cringe factor, and they are not done in a greater context of creating an understanding, of painting a picture of a world in which people live that they actually suffered. By using descriptive details and offering this fantastic imagery, I could imagine almost every part of the book, especially when it came to the violent scenes. This impacted me because honestly, I have never cried when I read a book as inspiring as this one. It really gave me a new appreciation in life. In reality, women suffered serious consequences if they went against the Talibans Islamic Sharia law. Such consequences were as followed: if a woman showed an inch or two of skin accidentally, shed be flogged right then and there in public. If a woman wore fingernail polish, her fingers would be cut off. Asking for a divorce meant either going to prison, having her kids taken away from her, or even death. Even though Hosseini is all for feminism by showing the strength of these women, it was nearly impractical for a woman to actually leave her family. A lot of what was going on throughout the book paralleled with the societal norms of this
time period.

It was said that the Taliban ordered to paint the windows of the houses to prevent people from looking at the women inside. In many cases, women would go maniacal and later have mental issues from being imprisoned in their own house. The situation was so abominable, many women attempted suicide such as drinking battery acid to escape their ruined life. As for the dress code for women, they are forced to wear a burqa, which is a full outer body garment that covers the entire body to prevent from showing inappropriate things according to the Taliban. The burqa was so thick that it was difficult for women to breathe. Any type of foot wear that made noise was banned because it has been said that women should be silent. The fate of women in Afghanistan is infamous and intolerable. The burqa that imprisons them is a cloth prison, but it is above all a moral prison. The torture imposed on little girls who dare to show their ankles or their polished nails is appalling. It is unacceptable and insupportable King Mohammed VI of Morocco (state.gov). Women were severely punished if caught doing anything bad, such as being caught with an unrelated man. The punishment for that was 100 lashes on her back in a stadium full of people watching her. If a woman is married and was found with an unrelated male, she would have been killed by being stoned to death; amputations and executions were also allowed during the time and today as well. In Afghanistan the disrespect of human rights has acquired extreme dimensions. Overall, women in Afghanistan are basically not treated as people. To overcome this, one needs to develop specific gender-oriented programs that would include, primarily and first of all, questions related to proper education for women Russian President Vladimir Putin(state.gov).

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in the year 1965, Khaled Hosseini grew up in an intellectual household. His father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry while his mother taught at a high school in Kabul about Farsi and history. As a child, Hosseini remembers the night when King Zahir Sha was overthrown by the kings cousin in 1973. Afghanistan turned into a chaotic republic and Hosseinis memory of peaceful quietness quickly evaporated. Hosseini and his family was relocated to Paris by the Foreign Ministry in 1976 and were about to go back to their homeland, but the invasion of the Soviet army prevented them from doing so. In September 1980, Hosseini and his family moved to the United States to San Jose, California. Having a lot of friends and family members in Kabul, nervousness grew inside as the Taliban were getting stronger. Hearing stories of missing people, murders, and being imprisoned terrified him. He attended high school at this time and it was a tough for him. He always felt isolated and alienated; he never felt like he belonged in high school. Thats the kind of loneliness he could relate to these women of Afghanistan. Since he grew up in France and America, he was not introduced to forced marriage. Respect was a term he associated when it came to women. Later on, he got married to a woman named Roya who actually convinced him to write because, she wanted to let other people get a glimpse of whats going on in Afghanistan other than the more normal news such as, Bin Laden and the Taliban. After 27 years and publishing his first novel, The Kite Runner, he finally returned to Kabul. He never intended to interview women and see things from their perspective; he was there to see how people coped with being under the control of the Taliban. The main characters in his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila, are based on the collective voices of the women he heard from his trip. I knew the facts, I knew the figures, I knew the statistics and so on and so forth, but what it missed, what it lacked for me, my understanding, was a human

dimension (Hosseini). I went into this book, as opposed to The Kite Runner, with a slightly more sense of mission (Hosseini). After hearing stories from the womens perspective, he wanted to show the innumerous interpersonal hardships and political violence that was going on. Hearing stories from his mother and wife also inspired him to share the struggling voices of Afghan women. "I think that when I went there and I saw the enormity of the suffering that people had gone through.... In some ways, you wonder why you were spared all of that and whether you have made good use of the good fortune that for sheer luck you've been granted (Hosseini).