Osama: The Life of an Afghan Girl

Islam has influenced many cultures around the world. For centuries, Islam has had an immense influence on the Afghan culture. According to this religion, women have no rights. The men took advantage of this system by translating only what they wanted from the Koran; to enslave the women in our culture for their own desires. From the beginning, the women on no account had any civil rights or have power over their own lives, and most were uneducated and had accepted what their teachers taught in schools and mosques. My family moved to the US when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. I thank god to be one of the lucky women who did not have to live in Afghanistan and for giving me a better place to live in America. Unfortunately, this was not the case for the majority of the Afghan women. Under the cruel Taliban government the women were banned to work, and were not allowed outside their homes without being escorted by a man. The film Osama, inspired by a true story, is about Osama, a young girl who did lived in Kabul while the Taliban regime. Through Osama's story, I had a chance to see what it was like to live in Afghanistan as a woman. This is a story of a girl whose faith was in the hands of many different people: her family, the Taliban soldiers, and the city judge. Osama and I have different lives on different continents; however, we both could have had more rights and better life if we were born men.

Women under Taliban law did not have the rights to speak freely, to show their face to men, to go outside without an escort, and the right to work. Osama's father was killed in the Kabul war during the Russian invasion, leaving behind his widow wife and only child, Osama. The only hope of survival for her family was Osama, who was forced to learn to become a man by day and a woman at night. Afraid of starving in poverty, Osama's mother forced Osama to wear her father's clothing, cut her hair, and behave like a man. She worked in the daytime and accepted her family's decision of transferring her in to a boy. Under the Taliban's extreme law, if caught, Osama would be sentenced to death. This young girl learned how to behave according to the rules, even though she was