As the debate rages over the withdrawal of British and US troops in Afghanistan, there are those who argue that the appalling treatment of women under the Taliban is a peripheral issue. They claim that the fate of Afghan women such as 18-year-old Aisha, whose nose and ears were sliced off as retribution for running away from her husband's home, is horrific, but irrelevant. They are wrong. Women's equality must be at the front and centre of the discussion if there is to be a hope of restoring peace and prosperity to wartorn nations such as Afghanistan.
The damaged but still hauntingly beautiful face of Aisha, which caused such a sensation when printed with the words "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan" on the front of Time magazine, is a symbol of the brutalisation of women, but it is also a symbol of a brutalised society: her mutilation did not take place in a cultural vacuum. It is impossible to imagine a society that sanctions violence against women without also dehumanising men.
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