ny families. “The imposition of the burqa has placed an additional financial burden on...families at a time when the economy has been deteriorating” (Marsden 91). The Taliban does not hesitate to beat a woman caught without the burqa, or even if some of her skin shows beneath it, say should a breeze catch it and blow it around her ankles. “The practice of the Taliban of beating women with sticks...has had an enormous impact on the mobility of the female population” (Marsden 90). There is a climate of fear which inhibits women from leaving the home. Health care workers who are female have either abandoned their jobs, or sleep at the clinics throughout the week to minimize the time they are exposed to Taliban forces (Marsden 90). There is also a marked decline in the numbers of women and children who attend health facilities as many are too afraid to step outside, not knowing what infraction will bring death (Marsden 90). Woman have become sub-human, afraid to tread to heavily in their own neighborhood. Sadly enough it is not the streets they fear, nor crime, it is their government, those who are supposed to protect them.The response to the donning of the burqa varies from person to person, culture to culture. Much of the Western world is outraged that a country could subjugate their people so, while the rest of the world did nothing to intervene. Agnus Gruda was quoted by Michele Lemon as saying: “The Islamic veil is more than religious garb, it is one of the most powerful symbols of a woman’s servitude” (477). Ms. Lemon was outraged by the sight of a woman in her neighborhood in Canada wearing the hijab, saying she did not want to see a woman so obviously 5“a walking billboard that proclaims public space is reserved for men” (477). Ms. Lemon sees the hijab as a symbol of oppression, calling it a “symbol of the difficulty all women once faced and a startling reminder t...
