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MUMBAI:
Six years after CNN broadcast the groundbreaking and award-winning
documentary 'Beneath the Veil,' the international network returns
to Afghanistan and discovers that women still face dangerous and
harsh living conditions even after the U.S. and coalition forces
invaded the country following the September 11th attacks.
In
Afghanistan – Lifting the veil celebrated journalist and filmmaker
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy criss-crosses the impoverished country, meets
with ordinary Afghans and witnesses firsthand the struggles women
face in a nation trying to rebuild amid continued war, corruption
and chaos. Obaid-Chinoy learns that stalled foreign aid, repressive
clerics and a dysfunctional government stymie progress.
 Despite
Afghanistan's new democracy, little appears to have changed for
the better, particularly for women. Six years after the Taliban
was overthrown, many women are still forced by their husbands and
families to wear burqas. Only two out of five Afghan girls attend
school and since most women lack the skills and training to work,
begging is often the only option even for a bleak life.
With
such limited options, many women have chosen a devastating route
of escape from their brutal oppression: self-immolation. Obaid-Chinoy
speaks with suicide survivors in hospitals to try to understand
what drives them to such desperate actions as setting themselves
on fire.
In
a country of nearly 32 million, more than one million are widows
– a consequence of 20 years of wars and conflict. Without husbands,
the widows are essentially condemned to a life of abject poverty.
Even married women do not appear to fare much better. In a culture
in which most marriages are arranged and young girls are often sold
into marriage by their early teen years, women are frequently doomed
to lives of abuse by their husbands and in-laws.
 But
Obaid-Chinoy does find some faint signs of hope as well. In the
northern town of Taloqan, she finds a girls' school which seems
to embody the promise of the "new Afghanistan." A fiercely
courageous teacher, who once risked her life to teach girls in secret,
now teaches in a modest facility that educates 4,000 girls. Despite
this progress, the school has not received the aid it needs to build
new classrooms and the girls say they face strong resistance to
study at home.
In
2001, Beneath the Veil introduced viewers to one family devastated
by the Taliban. The father had been kidnapped, the mother executed
and their young daughters were left alone in a house with Taliban
fighters for days. Obaid-Chinoy returns six years later to find
out how the father and two daughters have fared since liberation,
finding a mixed message of Afghanistan's pain and progress.
In
a nearby village, Obaid-Chinoy speaks with a cleric who also speaks
hopefully. He tells her that despite the crushing poverty, he is
optimistic for the reconstruction of his war-ravaged village –
perhaps a health center might open someday and more food may become
available for the people.
Obaid-Chinoy
concludes: "I have found joy and hope in places I least expected
it, but I have also learned that progress is slow. Afghanistan's
problems were not fixed by the invasion…hanging in the balance,
are the future of Afghanistan and the lives of its people, people
desperate for peace…and for hope."
Airtimes:
Indian Standard Times
Saturday,
September 15 at 1130 & 1930
Sunday,
September 16 at 0030 & 1130
Monday,
September 17 at 0030
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