Women's Rights in Afghanistan - Burqa and Chador

Burqa and Chador

The burqa is a long garment, covering the entire body, with only a cloth grid allowing the wearer to see out. An early record of this dress was made during the British exploration of Afghanistan in the First Anglo-Afghan War when some officers made lithographs picturing the burqa. During the Taliban regime in the 1990s all women in Afghanistan were forced to wear the burqa in public places.

A burqa is extremely hot to wear and this produces a bad odor inside. Wearers may feel claustrophobic and are at higher risk for asthma. Dust kicked up from the streets sticks to the cloth in front of the mouth that becomes damp from breathing, leading to a sense of suffocation in stale air. The mesh opening severely restricts one's range of vision and is said to be like wearing horse blinders. Consequently, women wearing the burqa often have difficulty even seeing where they are going.

It is impossible to tell whether a woman wearing a burqa is smiling or crying or showing any other emotion. Women say that this leads to a feeling of being completely invisible. Women outside the major cities still wear the burqa, more than ten years after the end of the Taliban regime.