‘Gender apartheid’: Vatican newspaper deplores plight of Afghan women, imposition of burqa
August 14, 2024
» Continue to this story on L'Osservatore Romano (Italian)
CWN Editor's Note: Three years after the fall of Kabul, the Vatican newspaper devoted the most prominent article in its August 13 edition to the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule.
“The faces of Afghan women are erased, obliterated by the burqa, or, if they are mannequins, by plastic bags or strips of adhesive tape,” Francesca Sabatinelli wrote in her article, entitled “Senza volto” [Without a face].
“The darkening of faces is a metaphor for the condition of women, victims of liberty-killing measures that in a patriarchal society like that of Afghanistan do not arouse much horror, such as the reintroduction of stoning for adultery,” she continued. “Most government bans are aimed at mothers, wives, daughters, who are forbidden from any action: from walking alone in the street, to attending schools and universities, to participating in active life. In the workplace, everything is barred, except the health sector.”
“It is true gender apartheid, the confinement of women at home,” Sabatinelli added. “And it is only within the four walls that women’s protest can be expressed.”
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Posted by: feedback -
Aug. 14, 2024 9:40 AM ET USA
L'Osservatore Romano presents a typical shallow Western feminist and secularist point of view on this topic. Archbishop Chaput once made a more insightful comment: "The hijab and the burqa say two important things in a morally confused culture: “I’m not sexually available;” and “I belong to a community different and separate from you and your obsessions.”" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/message-behind-burqa/
